UC-NRLF 


M7    5D5 


THE  IN\ 
OF   THE 


THE   INVENTIONS 
OF   THE   IDIOT 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS 

Author  of  "A  House-Boat  on  the  Styx" 

"  The  Pursuit  of  the  House-Boat " 

"  Olympian  Nights  " 

Etc.  Etc. 


Neto  York  and  London 

Harper  &  Brothers  Publishers 

1904 


Copyright,  1903,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  April,  1904. 


TO 
YOU 


Contents 


I.  THE  CULINARY  GUILD   ....  i 

II.  A  SUGGESTION   FOR  THE  CABLE- 

CARS  16 

III.  THE     TRANSATLANTIC     TROLLEY 

COMPANY 31 

IV.  THE     INCORPORATION     OF     THE 

IDIOT 47 

V.  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION     ...  64 

VI.  SOCIAL  EXPANSION 79 

VII.  A  BEGGAR'S  HAND-BOOK   ...  96 

VIII.  PROGRESSIVE  WAFFLES  .     .     .     .  112 

IX.  A  CLEARING-HOUSE  FOR  POETS     .  127 

X.  SOME    ELECTRICAL   SUGGESTIONS  142 

XI.  CONCERNING  CHILDREN.    .     .     .  158 

XII.  DREAMALINE 172 


THE  INVENTIONS  OF 
THE  IDIOT 


The  Culinary  Guild 

IT  was  before  the  Idiot's  marriage, 
and  in  the  days  when  he  was  noth 
ing  more  than  a  plain  boarder  in 
Mrs.  Smithers-Pedagog's  High -class 
Home  for  Single  Gentlemen,  that 
he  put  what  the  School-master  term 
ed  his  "  alleged  rnind  "  on  plans  for 
the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of 
the  civilized. 

"  The  trials  of  the  barbarian  are 
really  nothing  as  compared  with 
the  tribulations  of  civilized  man," 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

he  said,  as  the  waitress  passed  him 
a  piece  of  steak  that  had  been 
burned  to  a  crisp.  "  In  the  Canni 
bal  Islands  a  cook  who  would  send 
a  piece  of  broiled  missionary  to  her 
employer's  table  in  this  condition 
would  herself  be  roasted  before  an 
other  day  had  dawned.  We,  how 
ever,  must  grin  and  bear  it,  be 
cause  our  esteemed  landlady  cannot 
find  anywhere  in  this  town  a  woman 
better  suited  for  the  labors  of  the 
kitchen  than  the  blank  she  has  had 
the  misfortune  to  draw  in  the  culinary 
lottery,  familiarly  known  to  us,  her 
victims,  as  Bridget." 

"  This  is  an  exceptional  case,'* 
said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "  We  haven't 
had  a  steak  like  this  before  in 
several  weeks." 

"True,"  returned  the  Idiot. 
"  This  is  a  sirloin,  I  believe.  The 
last  steak  we  had  was  a  rump 
steak,  and  it  was  not  burned  to  a 
crisp,  I  admit.  It  was  only  boiled, 


The  Culinary  Guild 

if  I  remember  rightly,  by  mistake; 
Bridget  having  lost  her  fifth  consecu 
tive  cousin  in  ten  days  the  night  be 
fore,  and  being  in  consequence  so 
prostrated  that  she  could  not  tell  a 
gridiron  from  a  lawn-mower." 

'  Well,  you  know  the  popular 
superstition,  Mr.  Idiot,"  said  the 
Poet.  "  The  devil  sends  the  cooks." 

11  I  don't  believe  it,"  retorted 
the  Idiot.  '  That's  one  of  those 
proverbs  that  haven't  a  particle  of 
truth  in  'em — nor  a  foundation  in 
reason  either,  like  '  Never  look  a 
gift  horse  in  the  mouth.'  Of  all 
absurd  advice  ever  given  to  man 
by  a  thoughtless  thinker,  that,  I 
think,  bears  the  palm.  I  know  a 
man  who  didn't  look  a  gift  horse  in 
the  mouth,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  he  accepted  a  horse  that  was 
twenty-eight  years  old.  The  beast 
died  in  his  stables  three  days  later, 
and  the  beneficiary  had  to  pay  five 
dollars  to  have  him  carted  away. 
3 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

As  for  the  devil  sending  the  cooks, 
I  haven't  any  faith  in  the  theory. 
Any  person  who  had  come  from  the 
devil  would  know  how  to  manage  a 
fire  better  than  ninety-nine  per  cent. 
of  the  cooks  ever  born.  It  would  be 
a  good  thing  if  every  one  of  'em 
were  forced  to  serve  an  apprentice 
ship  with  the  Prince  of  Darkness. 
However,  steak  like  this  serves  a 
good  purpose.  It  serves  to  bind  our 
little  circle  more  firmly  together. 
There's  nothing  like  mutual  suffering 
to  increase  the  sympathy  that  should 
exist  between  men  situated  as  wre 
are;  and  as  for  Mrs.  Smithers-Peda- 
gog,  I  wish  her  to  understand  dis 
tinctly  that  I  am  criticising  the  cook 
and  not  herself.  If  this  particular 
dainty  had  been  prepared  by  her  own 
fair  hand,  I  doubt  not  I  should  want 
more  of  it." 

"I  thank  you,"  returned  the  land 
lady,  somewhat  mollified  by  this  re 
mark.  "  If  I  had  more  time  I  should 


The  Culinary  Guild 

occasionally  do  the  cooking  myself, 
but,  as  it  is,  I  am  overwhelmed  with 
work." 

"I  can  bear  witness  to  that," 
observed  Mr.  Whitechoker.  "Mrs. 
Smithers-Pedagog  is  one  of  the  most 
useful  ladies  in  my  congregation. 
If  it  were  not  for  her,  many  a  hea 
then  would  be  going  without  gar 
ments  to-day." 

"Well,  I  don't  like  to  criticise," 
said  the  Idiot,  "but  I  think  the 
heathen  at  home  should  be  consid 
ered  before  the  heathen  abroad.  If 
your  congregation  would  have  a 
guild  to  look  after  such  heathen  as 
the  Poet  and  the  Doctor  and  my 
self,  I  am  convinced  it  would  be 
more  appreciated  by  those  who  ben 
efited  by  its  labors  than  it  is  at 
present  by  the  barbarians  who  try 
to  wear  the  misfits  it  sends  out.  A 
Christian  whose  plain  but  honest 
breakfast  is  well  cooked  is  apt  to  be 
far  more  grateful  than  a  barbarian 
5 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

who  is  wearing  a  pair  of  trousers 
made  of  calico  and  a  coat  three 
sizes  too  small  in  the  body  and  nine 
sizes  too  large  in  the  arms.  I  will 
go  further.  I  believe  that  if  the 
domestic  heathen  were  cared  for 
they  would  do  much  better  work, 
would  earn  better  pay,  and  would, 
out  of  mere  gratitude,  set  apart  a 
sufficiently  large  portion  of  their  in 
creased  earnings  to  be  devoted  to 
the  purchase  of  tailor-made  costumes, 
which  would  please  the  cannibals 
better,  far  better,  than  the  amateur 
creations  they  now  get.  I  know  I'd 
contribute  some  of  my  surplus." 

"What  would  you  have  such  a 
guild  do?"  queried  Mr.  Whitechoker. 

"Do?  There'd  be  so  much  for  it 
to  do  that  the  members  could  hard 
ly  find  time  to  rest,"  returned  the 
Idiot.  "Do?  Why,  my  dear  sir, 
take  this  house,  for  instance,  and  see 
what  it  could  do  here.  What  a  boon 
it  would  be  for  me  if  some  kind- 
6 


The  Culinary  Guild 

hearted  person  would  come  here 
once  a  week  and  sew  buttons  on 
my  clothes,  darn  my  socks — in  short, 
keep  me  mended.  What  better  work 
for  one  who  desires  to  make  the 
world  brighter,  happier,  and  less 
sinful!" 

"I  fail  to  see  how  the  world 
would  be  brighter,  happier,  or  less 
sinful  if  your  suspender-buttons  were 
kept  firm,  and  your  stockings  darned, 
and  your  wardrobe  generally  mend 
ed,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "I  grant 
that  such  a  guild  would  be  doing  a 
noble  work  if  it  would  take  you  in 
hand  and  correct  many  of  your  im 
pressions,  revise  your  well-known 
facts  so  as  to  bring  them  more  in 
accord  with  indubitable  truths,  and 
impart  to  your  customs  some  of  that 
polish  which  you  so  earnestly  strive 
for  in  your  dress." 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  Idiot, 
suavely.  "  But  I  don't  wish  to  over 
burden  the  kind  ladies  to  whom  I 
7 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

refer.  If  my  costumes  could  be 
looked  after  I  might  find  time  to 
look  after  my  customs,  and,  I  assure 
you,  Mr.  Pedagog,  if  at  any  time 
you  will  undertake  to  deliver  a 
course  of  lectures  on  Etiquette,  I 
will  gladly  subscribe  for  two  orches 
tra-chairs  and  endeavor  to  occupy 
both  of  them.  At  any  rate,  to  re 
turn  to  the  main  point,  I  claim  that 
the  world  would  be  happier  and 
brighter  and  less  sinful  if  the  do 
mestic  heathen  were  kept  mended 
by  such  a  guild,  and  I  challenge  any 
one  here  to  deny,  even  on  so  slight 
a  basis  as  the  loose  suspender  -  but 
ton,  the  truth  of  what  I  say.  When 
I  arise  in  the  morning  and  find  a 
button  gone,  do  I  make  genial  re 
marks  about  the  joys  of  life?  I  do 
not.  I  use  words.  Sometimes  one 
word,  which  need  not  be  repeated 
here.  I  am  unhappy,  and,  being 
unhappy,  the  world  seems  dark  and 
dreary,  and  in  speaking  impatiently, 
8 


The  Culinary  Guild 

though  very  much  to  the  point,  as  I 
do,  I  am  guilty  of  an  offence  that  is 
sinful.  With  such  a  start  in  the 
morning,  I  come  here  to  the  table. 
Mr.  Pedagog  sees  that  I  am  not 
quite  myself.  He  asks  me  if  I  am 
not  feeling  well,  an  irritating  ques 
tion  at  any  time,  but  particularly  so 
to  a  man  with  a  suspender-button 
gone.  I  retort.  He  re-retorts,  until 
our  converse  is  warmer  than  the 
coffee,  and  our  relations  colder  than 
the  waffles.  Finally  I  leave  the 
house,  slamming  the  door  behind 
me,  structurally  weakening  the  house, 
and  go  to  business,  where  I  wreak  my 
vengeance  upon  the  second  clerk,  who 
takes  it  out  of  the  office-boy,  who 
goes  home  and  vents  his  wrath  on 
his  little  sister,  who,  goaded  into  reck 
lessness,  teases  the  baby  until  he 
yells  and  gets  spanked  by  his  mother 
for  being  noisy.  Now,  why  should  a 
loose  suspender  -  button  be  allowed 
to  subject  that  baby  to  such  humilia- 
9 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

tion,  and  who  can  deny  that,  if  it 
had  been  properly  sewed  on  by  a 
guild,  such  as  I  have  mentioned, 
the  baby  never  would  have  been 
spanked  for  the  causes  mentioned? 
What  is  your  answer,  Mr.  White- 
choker?" 

"  Truly,  I  am  so  breathless  at 
your  logic  that  I  cannot  reason," 
said  the  Minister.  "But  haven't 
we  digressed  a  little?  We  were 
speaking  of  cooks,  and  we  conclude 
with  a  pathetic  little  allegory  about 
a  suspender-button  and  a  baby  that 
is  not  only  teased  but  spanked." 

"The  baby  could  get  the  same 
spanking  for  reasons  based  on  the 
shortcomings  of  the  cooks,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "  I  am  irritated  when  I 
am  served  with  green  pease  hard 
enough  to  batter  down  Gibraltar  if 
properly  aimed;  when  my  coffee  is 
a  warmed-over  reminiscence  of  last 
night's  demi-tasse,  I  leave  the  house 
in  a  frame  of  mind  that  bodes  ill  for 
10 


The  Culinary  Guild 

the  junior  clerk,  and  the  effect  on 
the  baby  is  ultimately  the  same." 

"And — er — you'd  have  the  ladies 
whose  energies  are  now  devoted 
towards  the  clothing  of  the  heathen 
come  here  and  do  the  cooking?" 
queried  the  School-master. 

"I  leave  if  they  do,"  said  the 
Doctor.  "  I  have  seen  too  much  of 
the  effects  of  amateur  cookery  in 
my  profession  to  want  any  of  it. 
They  are  good  cooks  in  theory,  but 
not  in  practice." 

"There  you  have  it!"  said  the 
Idiot,  triumphantly.  "Right  in  a 
nutshell.  That's  where  the  cooks 
are  always  weak.  They  have  none 
of  the  theory  and  all  of  the  practice. 
If  they  based  practice  on  theory, 
they'd  cook  better.  Wherefore  let 
your  theoretical  cooks  seek  out  the 
practical  and  instruct  them  in  the 
principles  of  the  culinary  art.  Think 
of  what  twelve  ladies  could  do; 
twelve  ladies  trained  in  the  sewing- 
ii 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

circle  to  talk  rapidly,  working  five 
hours  a  day  apiece,  could  devote  an 
hour  a  week  to  three  hundred  and 
sixty  cooks,  and  tell  them  practically 
all  they  themselves  know  in  that 
time;  and  if,  in  addition  to  this, 
twelve  other  ladies,  forming  an  aux 
iliary  guild,  would  make  dresses  and 
bonnets  and  things  for  the  same 
cooks,  instead  of  for  the  cannibals, 
it  would  keep  them  good-natured." 

"Splendid  scheme!"  said  the  Doc 
tor.  "So  practical.  Your  brain  must 
weigh  half  an  ounce." 

"I've  never  had  it  weighed,"  said 
the  Idiot,  "but,  I  fancy,  it's  a  good 
one.  It's  the  only  one  I  have,  any 
how,  and  it's  done  me  good  service, 
and  shows  no  signs  of  softening. 
But,  returning  to  the  cooks,  good 
nature  is  as  essential  to  the  making 
of  a  good  cook  as  are  apples  to  the 
making  of  a  dumpling.  You  can't 
associate  the  word  dumpling  with 
ill-nature,  and  just  as  the  poet  throws 

12 


The  Culinary  Guild 

himself  into  his  work,  and  as  he  is  of 
a  cheerful  or  a  mournful  disposition, 
so  does  his  work  appear  cheerful  or 
mournful,  so  do  the  productions  of  a 
cook  take  on  the  attributes  of  their 
maker.  A  dyspeptic  cook  will  pre 
pare  food  in  a  manner  so  indigesti 
ble  that  it  were  ruin  to  partake  of 
it.  A  light-hearted  cook  will  make 
light  bread;  a  pessimistic  cook  will 
serve  flour  bricks  in  lieu  thereof." 

"I  think  possibly  you  are  right 
when  you  say  that,"  said  the  Doctor. 
"  I  have  myself  observed  that  the 
people  who  sing  at  their  work  do  the 
best  work." 

"But  the  worst  singing,"  growled 
the  School-master. 

"That  may  be  true,"  put  in  the 
Idiot;  "but  you  cannot  expect  a 
cook  on  sixteen  dollars  a  month  to 
be  a  prima- donna.  Now,  if  Mr. 
Whitechoker  will  undertake  to  start 
a  sewing  -  circle  in  his  church  for 
people  who  don't  care  to  wear  cloth- 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

ing,  but  to  sow  the  seeds  of  concord 
and  good  cookery  throughout  the 
kitchens  of  this  land,  I  am  prepared 
to  prophesy  that  at  the  end  of  the 
year  there  will  be  more  happiness 
and  less  depression  in  this  part  of 
the  world;  and  once  eliminate  dys 
pepsia  from  our  midst,  and  get  civ 
ilization  and  happiness  controvertible 
terms,  then  you  will  find  your  foreign 
missionary  funds  waxing  so  fat  that 
instead  of  the  amateur  garments  for 
the  heathen  you  now  send  them,  you 
will  be  able  to  open  an  account  at 
Worth's  and  Poole's  for  every  bar 
barian  in  creation.  The  scheme  for 
the  sewing  on  of  suspender-buttons 
and  the  miscellaneous  mending  that 
needs  to  be  done  for  lone-lorn  sav 
ages  like  myself  might  be  left  in 
abeyance  until  the  culinary  scheme 
has  been  established.  Bachelors  con 
stitute  a  class,  a  small  class  only,  of 
humanity,  but  the  regeneration  of 
cooks  is  a  universal  need." 
14 


The  Culinary  Guild 

"I  think  your  scheme  is  certainly 
a  picturesque  one  and  novel,"  said 
Mr.  Whitechoker.  "There  seems  to 
be  a  good  deal  in  it.  Don't  you 
think  so,  Mr.  Pedagog?" 

1  'Yes  —  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog, 
wearily.  "A  great  deal  —  of  lan 
guage." 

And  amid  the  laugh  at  his  ex 
pense  which  followed,  the  Idiot, 
joining  in,  departed. 


II 
A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

HEIGH-HO!"  sighed  the  Idiot, 
rubbing  his  eyes  sleepily.  "  This 
is  a  weary  world." 

1  'What?  This  from  you?"  smiled 
the  Poet.  "  I  never  expected  to  hear 
that  plaint  from  a  man  of  your  cheer 
ful  disposition." 

"  Humph!"  said  the  Idiot,  with  dif 
ficulty  repressing  a  yawn.  " Humph! 
and  I  may  add,  likewise,  tut !  What 
do  you  take  me  for — an  insulated  sun 
beam?  I  can't  help  it  if  shadows 
camp  across  my  horizon  occasionally. 
I  wouldn't  give  a  cent  for  the  man 
who  never  had  his  moments  of  misery. 
It  takes  night  to  enable  us  to  appre 
ciate  daytime.  Misery  is  a  foil  nec- 
16 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

essary  to  the  full  appreciation  of  joy. 
I'm  glad  I  am  sort  of  down  in  the 
mouth  to-day.  I'll  be  all  right  to 
morrow,  and  I'll  enjoy  to-morrow  all 
the  more  for  to-day's  megrim.  But 
for  the  present,  I  repeat,  this  is  a 
weary  world." 

"Oh,  I  don't  think  so,"  observed 
the  School  -  master.  "The  world 
doesn't  seem  to  me  to  betray  any 
signs  of  weariness.  It  got  to  work 
at  the  usual  hour  this  morning,  and, 
as  far  as  I  can  judge,  has  been  re 
volving  at  the  usual  rate  of  speed 


ever  since." 


"The  Idiot's  mistake  is  a  common 
one,"  put  in  the  Doctor.  "I  find  it 
frequently  in  my  practice." 

"That's  a  confession,"  retorted  the 
Idiot.  "Do  you  find  out  these  mis 
takes  in  your  practice  before  or  after 
the  death  of  the  patient?" 

"That  mistake,"'  continued  the 
Doctor,  paying  apparently  little  heed 
to  the  Idiot's  remark — "  that  mistake 


The  InDentions  of  the  Idiot 

lies  in  the  Idiot's  assumption  that  he 
is  himself  the  world.  He  regards 
himself  as  the  earth,  as  all  of  life,  and, 
because  he  happens  to  be  weary,  the 
world  is  a  weary  one." 

"It  isn't  a  fatal  disease,  is  it?" 
queried  the  Idiot,  anxiously.  "  I  am 
not  likely  to  become  so  impressed 
with  that  idea,  for  instance,  that  I 
shall  have  to  be  put  in  a  padded  cell 
and  manacled  so  that  I  may  not  turn 
perpetual  handsprings  under  the  hal 
lucination  that,  being  the  world,  it  is 
my  duty  to  revolve?" 

"No,"  replied  the  Doctor,  with  a 
laugh.  "  No,  indeed.  That  is  not  at 
all  likely  to  happen,  but  I  think  it 
would  be  a  good  idea  if  you  were  to 
carry  the  hallucination  out  far  enough 
to  put  a  cake  of  ice  on  your  head,  as 
suming  that  to  be  the  north  pole, 
and  cool  off  that  brain  of  yours." 

"  That  is  a  good  idea,"  returned  the 
Idiot ;  "  and  if  Mary  will  bring  me  the 
ice  that  was  used  to  cool  the  coffee 
18 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

this  morning,  I  shall  be  pleased  to  try 
the  experiment.  Meanwhile,  this  is  a 
weary  world." 

"Then  why  under  the  canopy 
don't  you  leave  it  and  go  to  some 
other  world?"  snapped  Mr.  Pedagog. 
"You  are  under  no  obligation  to  re 
main  here.  With  a  river  on  either 
side  of  the  city,  and  a  New  York  Jug 
gernaut  Company,  Unlimited,  run 
ning  trolley-cars  up  and  down  two  of 
our  more  prominent  highways,  suicide 
is  within  the  reach  of  all.  Of  course, 
we  should  be  sorry  to  lose  you,  in  a 
way,  but  I  have  known  men  to  re 
cover  from  even  greater  afflictions 
than  that." 

"  Thank  you  for  the  suggestion," 
replied  the  Idiot,  transferring  four 
large,  porous  buckwheat-cakes  to  his 
plate.  "  Thank  you  very  much,  but 
I  have  a  pleasanter  and  more  lin 
gering  method  of  suicide  right  here. 
Death  by  buckwheat  -  cakes  is  like 
being  pierced  by  a  Toledo  blade. 
19 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

You  do  not  realize  the  terrors  of  your 
situation  until  you  cease  to  be  sus 
ceptible  to  them.  Furthermore,  I  do 
not  believe  in  suicide.  It  is,  in  my 
judgment,  the  worst  crime  a  man  can 
commit,  and  I  cannot  but  admire  the 
remarkable  discernment  evinced  by 
the  Fates  in  making  of  it  its  own  in 
evitable  capital  punishment.  A  man 
may  commit  murder  and  escape 
death,  but  in  the  commission  of  sui 
cide  he  is  sure  of  execution.  Just  as 
Virtue  is  its  own  reward,  so  is  Suicide 
its  own  amercement." 

"Been  reading  the  dictionary 
again?"  asked  the  Poet. 

"  No,  not  exactly,"  said  the  Idiot, 
with  a  smile,  "but  —  it's  a  kind  of 
joke  on  me,  I  suppose — I  have  just 
been  stuck,  to  use  a  polite  term,  on  a 
book  called  Roget's  Thesaurus,  and, 
if  I  want  to  get  hold  of  a  new  word 
that  will  increase  my  seeming  im 
portance  to  the  community,  I  turn  to 
it.  That's  where  I  got '  amercement.' 
20 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

I  don't  hold  that  its  use  in  this  espe 
cial  case  is  beyond  cavil — that's  an 
other  Thesaurian  term — but  I  don't 
suppose  any  one  here  would  notice 
that  fact.  It  goes  here,  and  I  shall 
not  use  it  elsewhere." 

"  I  am  interested  to  know  how  you 
ever  came  to  be  the  owner  of  a  The 
saurus"  said  the  School-master,  with 
a  grim  smile  at  the  idea  of  the  Idiot 
having  such  a  book  in  his  possession. 
"Except  on  the  score  of  affinities. 
You  are  both  very  wordy." 

"  Meaning  pleonastic,  I  presume," 
retorted  the  Idiot. 

"I  beg  your  pardon?"  said  the 
School-master. 

"  Never  mind,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I 
won't  press  the  analogy,  but  I  will  say 
that  those  who  are  themselves  peri 
phrastic  should  avoid  criticising  oth 
ers  for  being  ambaginous." 

"I  think  you  mean  ambiguous," 
said  the  School-master,  elevating  his 
eyebrows  in  triumph. 
21 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

"I  thought  you'd  think  that,"  re 
torted  the  Idiot.  "  That's  why  I  used 
the  word  'ambaginous.'  I'll  lend 
you  my  dictionary  to  freshen  up 
your  phraseology.  Meanwhile,  I'll 
tell  you  how  I  happened  to  get  a  The 
saurus.  I  thought  it  was  an  animal, 
and  when  I  saw  that  a  New  York 
bookseller  had  a  lot  of  them  mark 
ed  down  from  two  dollars  to  one,  I 
sent  and  got  one.  I  thought  it  was 
strange  for  a  bookseller  to  be  selling 
rare  animals,  but  that  was  his  bus 
iness,  not  mine;  and  as  I  was  anx 
ious  to  see  what  kind  of  a  creature  a 
Thesaurus  was,  I  invested.  When  I 
found  out  it  was  a  book  and  not  a 
tame  relic  of  the  antediluvian  animal 
kingdom,  I  thought  I  wouldn't  say 
anything  about  it,  but  you  people 
here  are  so  inquisitive  you Ve  learned 
my  secret." 

"And  wasn't  it  an  animal?"  asked 
Mrs.  Smithers-Pedagog. 

"My  dear — my  dear!"  ejaculated 

22 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Gable-cars 

Mr.  Pedagog.  "Pray — ah — I  beg  of 
you,  do  not  enter  into  this  discussion." 

"No,  Mrs.  Pedagog,"  observed  the 
Idiot,  "it  was  not.  It  was  nothing 
more  than  a  book,  which,  when  once 
you  have  read  it,  you  would  not  be 
without,  since  it  gives  your  vocabu 
lary  a  twist  which  makes  you  proof 
against  ninety  -  nine  out  of  every 
one  hundred  conversationalists  in  the 
world,  no  matter  how  weak  your 
cause." 

"  I  am  beginning  to  understand  the 
causes  of  your  weariness,"  observed 
Mr.  Pedagog,  acridly.  "You  have 
been  memorizing  syllables.  Really, 
I  should  think  you  were  in  danger  of 
phonetic  prostration." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"Those  words  are  stimulating,  not 
depressing.  I  begin  to  feel  better  al 
ready,  now  that  I  have  spoken  them. 
I  am  not  half  so  weary  as  I  was,  but 
for  my  weariness  I  had  good  cause. 
I  suffered  all  night  from  a  most  fright- 

3  23 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

ful  nightmare.  It  utterly  destroyed 
my  rest.'* 

"Welsh-rarebit?"  queried  the  Ge 
nial  Old  Gentleman  who  occasion 
ally  imbibed,  with  a  tone  of  re 
proach.  "  If  so,  why  was  I  not  with 
you?" 

"That  question  should  be  its  own 
answer,"  replied  the  Idiot.  "A  man 
who  will  eat  a  Welsh-rarebit  alone  is 
not  only  a  person  of  a  sullen  disposi 
tion,  but  of  reckless  mould  as  well. 
I  would  no  sooner  think  of  braving  a 
Welsh-rarebit  unaccompanied  than  I 
would  think  of  trying  to  swim  across 
the  British  Channel  without  a  life- 
saving  boat  following  in  my  wake." 

"I  question  if  so  light  a  body  as 
you  could  have  a  wake!"  said  Mr. 
Pedagog,  coldly. 

"  I  am  sorry,  but  I  can't  agree  with 
you,  Mr.  Pedagog,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac.  "A  tugboat,  most  insignifi 
cant  of  crafts,  roils  up  the  surface  of 
the  sea  more  than  an  ocean  steamer 
24 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

does.     Fuss  goes  with  feathers  more 
than  with  large  bodies." 

"Well,  they're  neither  of  'em  in  it 
with  a  cake  of  soap  for  real,  bona-fide 
suds,"  said  the  Idiot,  complacently, 
as  he  helped  himself  to  his  thirteenth 
buckwheat-cake.  "However,  wakes 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  I 
had  a  most  frightful  dream,  and  it 
was  not  due  to  Welsh-rarebits,  but 
to  my  fatal  weakness,  which,  not  hav 
ing  my  Thesaurus  at  hand,  I  must 
identify  by  the  commonplace  term  of 
courtesy.  You  may  not  have  noticed 
it,  but  courtesy  is  my  strong  point." 

"We  haven't  observed  the  fact," 
said  Mr.  Pedagog;  "but  what  of  it? 
Have  you  been  courteous  to  any 
one?" 

"  I  have,"  replied  the  Idiot,  "and  a 
nightmare  is  what  it  brought  me.  I 
rode  up-town  on  a  trolley-car  last 
night,  and  I  gave  up  my  seat  to  six 
teen  ladies,  two  of  whom,  by-the-way, 
thanked  me." 

25 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"  I  don't  see  why  more  than  one  of 
them  should  thank  you,"  sniffed  the 
landlady.  "If  a  man  gives  up  a 
trolley  -  car  seat  to  sixteen  ladies, 
only  one  of  them  can  occupy  it." 

"  I  stand  corrected,"  said  the  Idiot. 
' '  I  gave  up  a  seat  to  ladies  sixteen 
times  between  City  Hall  and  Twenty- 
third  Street.  I  can't  bring  myself  to 
sit  down  while  a  woman  stands,  and 
every  time  I'd  get  a  seat  some  woman 
would  get  on  the  car.  Hence  it  was 
that  I  gave  up  my  seat  to  sixteen  la 
dies.  Why  two  of  them  should  thank 
me,  considering  the  rules,  I  do  not 
know.  It  certainly  is  not  the  cus 
tom.  At  any  rate,  if  I  had  walked 
up- town,  I  should  not  have  had  more 
exercise  than  I  got  on  that  car,  bob 
bing  up  and  down  so  many  times, 
and  lurching  here  and  lurching  there 
every  time  the  car  stopped,  started, 
or  turned  a  corner.  Whether  it  was 
the  thanks  or  the  lurching  I  got,  I 
don't  know,  but  the  incidents  of  the 
26 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Gable-cars 

ride  were  so  strongly  impressed  upon 
me  that  I  dreamed  all  night,  only  in 
my  dreams  I  was  not  giving  up  car 
seats.  The  first  seat  I  gave  up  to  a 
woman  in  the  dream  was  an  eighty- 
thousand-dollar  seat  in  the  Stock  Ex 
change.  It  was  expensive  courtesy, 
but  I  did  it,  and  mourned  so  over  the 
result  that  I  waked  up  and  discovered 
that  it  was  but  a  dream.  Then  I 
went  to  sleep  again.  This  time  I  was 
at  the  opera.  I  had  the  best  seat  in 
the  house,  when  in  came  a  woman 
who  hadn't  a  chair.  Same  result.  I 
got  up.  She  sat  down,  and  I  had  to 
stand  behind  a  pillar  where  I  could 
neither  see  nor  hear.  More  grief; 
waked  up  again,  more  tired  than 
when  I  went  to  bed.  In  ten  minutes 
I  dozed  off.  Found  myself  an  am 
bitious  statesman  running  for  the 
Presidency.  Was  elected  and  inaugu 
rated.  Up  comes  a  Woman's  Rights 
candidate.  More  courtesy.  Gave  up 
the  Presidential  chair  to  her  and 
27 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

went  home  to  obscurity,  when  again 
I  awoke  tireder  than  ever.  Clock 
struck  four.  Fell  asleep  again.  This 
time  I  was  prepared  for  anything 
that  might  happen.  I  found  my 
self  in  a  trolley-car,  but  with  me  I 
had  a  perforated  chair-bottom,  such 
as  the  street  peddlers  sell.  Lady  got 
aboard.  I  put  the  perforated  chair- 
bottom  on  my  lap  and  invited  her  to 
sit  down.  She  thanked  me  and  did 
so.  Then  another  lady  got  on.  The 
lady  on  my  lap  moved  up  and  made 
room  for  the  second  lady.  She  sat 
down.  Between  them  they  must 
have  weighed  three  hundred  pounds. 
I  could  have  stood  that,  but  as  time 
went  on  more  ladies  got  aboard,  and 
every  time  that  happened  these  first- 
comers  would  move  up  and  make 
room  for  them.  How  they  did  it  I 
can't  say,  any  more  than  I  can  say 
how  in  real  life  three  women  can  find 
room  in  a  car-seat  vacated  by  a  little 
child.  They  did  the  former  just  as 
28 


A  Suggestion  for  the  Cable-cars 

they  do  the  latter,  until  finally  I 
found  myself  flattened  into  the  origi 
nal  bench  like  the  pattern  figure  of 
a  carpet.  I  felt  like  an  entaglio; 
thirty  women  by  actual  count  were 
pressing  me  to  remain,  as  it  were,  but 
the  worst  of  it  all  was  they  none  of 
them  seemed  to  live  anywhere.  We 
rode  on  and  on  and  on,  but  nobody 
got  off.  I  tried  to  move  —  and 
couldn't.  We  passed  my  corner,  but 
there  I  was  fixed.  I  couldn't  breathe, 
and  so  couldn't  call  out,  and  I  verily 
believe  that  if  I  hadn't  finally  waked 
up  I  should  by  this  time  have  reached 
Hong-Kong,  for  I  have  a  distinct  rec 
ollection  of  passing  through  Chicago, 
Denver,  San  Francisco,  and  Honolulu. 
Finally,  I  did  wake,  however,  simply 
worn  out  with  my  night's  rest,  which, 
gentlemen,  is  why  I  say,  as  I  have 
already  said,  this  is  a  weary  world." 
"Well,  I  don't  blame  you,"  said 
Mr.  Whitechoker,  kindly.  "  That  was 
a  most  remarkable  dream." 
29 


The  IriDentions  of  the  Idiot 

"Yes,"  assented  Mr.  Pedagog. 
"But  quite  in  line  with  his  waking 
thoughts." 

"Very  likely,"  said  the  Idiot,  rising 
and  preparing  to  depart.  "It  was 
absurd  in  most  of  its  features,  but  in 
one  of  them  it  was  excellent.  I  am 
going  to  see  the  president  of  the 
Electric  Juggernaut  Company,  as  you 
call  it,  in  regard  to  it  to-day.  I 
think  there  is  money  in  that  idea  of 
having  an  extra  chair-seat  for  every 
passenger  to  hold  in  his  lap.  In  that 
way  twice  as  many  seated  passengers 
can  be  accommodated,  and  countless 
people  with  tender  feet  will  be  spared 
the  pain  of  having  other  wayfarers 
standing  upon  them." 


Ill 

The  Transatlantic  Trolley  Com 
pany 

"  I F  I  were  a  millionaire,"  began 
1  the  Idiot  one  Sunday  morning, 
as  he  and  his  friends  took  their  ac 
customed  seats  at  the  breakfast- 
table,  "  I  would  devote  a  tenth  of  my 
income  to  the  poor,  a  tenth  to  chil 
dren's  fresh-air  funds,  and  the  bal 
ance  to  the  education  through  travel 
of  a  dear  and  intimate  friend  of 
mine." 

"That  would  be  a  generous  dis 
tribution  of  your  wealth,"  said  Mr. 
Whitechoker,  graciously.  "  But  upon 
what  would  you  live  yourself?" 

"I  should  stipulate  in  the  bargain 
with   my   dear   and   intimate  friend 
31 


The  IriDentions  of  the  Idiot 

that  we  should  be  inseparable;  that 
wherever  he  should  go  I  should  go, 
and  that,  of  the  funds  devoted  to  his 
education  through  travel,  one -half 
should  be  paid  to  me  as  my  com 
mission  for  letting  him  into  a  good 
thing." 

"You  certainly  have  good  busi 
ness  sense,"  put  in  the  Bibliomaniac. 
"  I  wish  I  had  had  when  I  was  col 
lecting  rare  editions." 

"Collecting  rare  books  and  a  good 
business  sense  seldom  go  together,  I 
fancy,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I  began 
collecting  books  once,  but  I  gave  it 
up  and  took  to  collecting  coins.  I 
chose  my  coin  and  devoted  my  time 
to  getting  in  that  variety  alone,  and 
it  has  paid  me." 

"  I  don't  exactly  gather  your  mean 
ing,"  said  Mr.  Whitechoker.  "You 
chose  your  coin?" 

"Precisely.  I  said,  'Here!  Most 
coin  collectors  spend  their  time  look 
ing  for  one  or  two  rare  coins,  for 
32 


Transatlantic  Trolleg  Company 

which,  when  they  are  found,  they  pay 
fabulous  prices.  The  result  is  often 
times  penury.  I,  on  the  other  hand, 
will  look  for  coins  of  a  common  sort 
which  do  not  command  fabulous 
prices/  So  I  chose  United  States 
five-dollar  gold  pieces,  irrespective  of 
dates,  for  my  collection,  and  the  re 
sult  is  moderate  affluence.  I  have 
between  sixty  and  a  hundred  of  them 
at  my  savings-bank,  and  when  I  have 
found  it  necessary  to  realize  on  them 
I  have  not  experienced  the  slightest 
difficulty  in  forcing  them  back  into 
circulation  at  cost." 

"You  are  a  wise  Idiot,"  said  the 
Bibliomaniac,  settling  back  in  his 
chair  in  a  disgusted,  tired  sort  of  way. 
He  had  expected  some  sympathy 
from  the  Idiot  as  a  fellow-collector, 
even  though  their  aims  were  differ 
ent.  It  is  always  difficult  for  a  man 
whose  ten  -  thousand  -  dollar  library 
has  brought  six  hundred  dollars  in 
the  auction-room  to  find,  even  in  the 
33 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

ranks  of  collectors,  one  who  under 
stands  his  woes  and  helps  him  bear 
the  burden  thereof  by  expressions  of 
confidence  in  his  sanity. 

"Then  you  believe  in  travel,  do 
you?"  asked  the  Doctor. 

"I  believe  there  is  nothing  broad 
ens  the  mind  so  much,"  returned  the 
Idiot. 

"  But  do  you  believe  it  will  develop 
a  mind  where  there  isn't  one?"  asked 
the  School-master,  unpleasantly.  ' '  Or, 
to  put  it  more  favorably,  don't  you 
think  there  would  be  danger  in  tak 
ing  the  germ  of  a  mind  in  a  small 
head  and  broadening  it  until  it  runs 
the  risk  of  finding  itself  confined  to 
cramped  quarters?" 

"That  is  a  question  for  a  physician 
to  answer,"  said  the  Idiot.  "But,  if 
I  were  you,  I  wouldn't  travel  if  I 
thought  there  was  any  such  dan- 
ger." 

"  Tu  quoque,"  retorted  the  School 
master,  "is  not  true  repartee." 
34 


Transatlantic  Trolley  Company 

1 '  I  shall  have  to  take  your  word  for 
that,"  returned  the  Idiot,  "  since  I 
have  not  a  Latin  dictionary  with  me, 
and  all  the  Latin  I  know  is  to  be 
found  in  the  quotations  in  the  back  of 
my  dictionary,  like  *  Status  quo  ante, ' 
'In  vino  veritas?  and  l  Et  tu,  Brute' 
However,  as  I  said  before,  I'd  like 
to  travel,  and  I  would  if  it  were  not 
that  the  sea  and  I  are  not  on  very 
good  terms  with  each  other.  It 
makes  me  ill  to  cross  the  East  River 
on  the  bridge,  I'm  so  susceptible  to 
sea-sickness." 

"  You'd  get  over  that  in  a  very  few 
days,"  said  the  Genial  Old  Gentle 
man  who  occasionally  imbibed.  "I 
have  crossed  the  ocean  a  dozen  times, 
and  I'm  never  sea-sick  after  the  third 
day  out." 

''Ah,  but  those  three  days!"  said 
the  Idiot.  "  They  must  resemble  the 
three  days  of  grace  on  a  note  that 
you  know  you  couldn't  pay  if  you 
had  three  years  of  grace.  I  couldn't 
35 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

stand  them,  I  am  afraid.  Why,  only 
last  summer  I  took  a  drive  off  in  the 
country,  and  the  motion  of  the  wag 
on  going  over  the  thank-ye-marms  in 
the  road  made  me  so  sea-sick  before 
I'd  gone  a  mile  that  I  wanted  to  lie 
down  and  die.  I  think  I  should 
have  done  so  if  the  horse  hadn't  run 
away  and  forced  me  to  ride  back 
home  whether  I  wanted  to  or  not." 

1  'You  ought  to  fight  that,"  said 
the  Doctor.  "  By  -and  -by,  if  you 
give  way  to  a  weakness  of  that  sort, 
the  creases  in  your  morning  news 
paper  will  affect  you  similarly  as  you 
read  it.  If  you  ever  have  a  birth 
day,  let  us  know,  and  we'll  help  you 
to  overcome  the  tendency  by  buying 
you  a  baby- jumper  for  you  to  swing 
around  in  every  morning  until  you 
get  used  to  the  motion." 

"  It  would  be  more  to  the  purpose," 
replied  the  Idiot,  "if  you  as  a  phy 
sician  would  invent  a  preventive  of 
sea-sickness.  I'd  buy  a  bottle  and  go 
36 


Transatlantic  Trolley  Company 

abroad  at  once  on  my  coin  collection 
if  you  would  guarantee  it  to  kill  or 
to  cure  instantaneously." 

"There  is  such  a  nostrum,"  said 
the  Doctor. 

"There  is,  indeed,"  put  in  the 
Genial  Old  Gentleman  who  occasion 
ally  imbibes.  "I've  tried  it." 

"And  were  you  sea -sick?"  asked 
the  Doctor. 

"I  never  knew,"  replied  the  Ge 
nial  Old  Gentleman.  "  It  made  me 
so  ill  that  I  never  thought  to  inquire 
what  was  the  matter  with  me.  But 
one  thing  is  certain,  I'll  take  my  sea- 
voyages  straight  after  this." 

"I'd  like  to  go  by  rail,"  said  the 
Idiot,  after  a  moment's  thought. 

"That  is  a  desire  quite  character 
istic  of  you,"  said  the  School-master. 
"It  is  so  probable  that  you  could. 
Why  not  say  that  you'd  like  to  cross 
the  Atlantic  on  a  tight-rope?" 

"  Because  I  have  no  such  ambi 
tion,"  replied  the  Idiot.  "Though 
37 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

it  might  be  fun  if  the  tight-rope  were 
a  trolley-wire,  and  one  could  sit  com 
fortably  in  a  spacious  cab  while 
speeding  over  the  water.  I  should 
think  that  would  be  exhilarating 
enough.  Just  imagine  how  fine  it 
would  be  on  a  stormy  day  to  sit 
looking  out  of  your  cab-window  far 
above  the  surface  of  the  raging  and 
impotent  sea,  skipping  along  at  elec 
tric  speed,  and  daring  the  waves  to 
do  their  worst — that  would  be  bliss." 

"And  so  practical,"  growled  the 
Bibliomaniac. 

"  Bliss  rarely  is  practical,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "  Bliss  is  a  sort  of  mugwump 
blessing — too  full  of  the  ideal  and 
too  barren  in  practicability." 

' '  Well, ' '  said  Mr.  Whitechoker .  ' '  I 
don't  know  why  we  should  say  that 
trolley-cars  between  New  York  and 
London  never  can  be.  If  we  had  told 
our  grandfathers  a  hundred  years  ago 
that  a  cable  for  the  transmission  of 
news  could  be  laid  under  the  sea, 

38 


Transatlantic  Trolley  Company 

they  would  have  laughed  us  to 
scorn." 

"That's  true,"  said  the  School 
master.  "But  we  know  more  than 
our  grandfathers  did." 

"Well,  rather,"  interrupted  the 
Idiot.  "My  great-grandfather,  who 
died  in  1799,  had  never  even  heard 
of  Andrew  Jackson,  and  if  you  had 
asked  him  what  he  thought  of  Dar 
win,  he'd  have  thought  you  were 
guying  him." 

"  Respect  for  age,  sir,"  retorted  Mr. 
Pedagog,  "restrains  me  from  charac 
terizing  your  great-grandfather,  if, 
as  you  intimate,  he  knew  less  than 
you  do.  However,  apart  from  the 
comparative  lack  of  knowledge  in 
the  Idiot's  family,  Mr.  Whitechoker, 
you  must  remember  that  with  the  ad 
vance  of  the  centuries  we  have  our 
selves  developed  a  certain  amount  of 
brains  —  enough,  at  least,  to  under 
stand  that  there  is  a  limit  even  to 
the  possibilities  of  electricity.  Now, 
39 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

when  you  say  that  just  because  an 
Atlantic  cable  would  have  been  re 
garded  as  an  object  of  derision  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  we  should  not 
deride  one  who  suggests  the  possi 
bility  of  a  marine  trolley -road  be 
tween  London  and  New  York  in  the 
twentieth  century,  it  appears  to  me 
that  you  are  talking — er — talking — I 
don't  like  to  say  nonsense  to  one  of 
your  cloth,  but — " 

11  Through  his  hat  is  the  idiom  you 
are  trying  to  recall,  I  think,  Mr.  Ped- 
agog,"  said  the  Idiot.  "Mr.  White- 
choker  is  talking  through  his  hat  is 
what  you  mean  to  say?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Idiot," 
said  the  School-master;  "but  when  I 
find  that  I  need  your  assistance  in 
framing  my  conversation,  I  shall— 
er — I  shall  give  up  talking.  I  mean 
to  say  that  I  do  not  think  Mr.  White- 
choker  can  justify  his  conclusions, 
and  talks  without  having  given  the 
subject  concerning  which  he  has  spo- 
40 


Transatlantic  Trolley  Company 

ken  due  reflection.  The  cable  runs 
along  the  solid  foundation  of  the  bed 
of  the  sea.  It  is  a  simple  matter, 
comparatively,  but  a  trolley -wire 
stretched  across  the  ocean  by  the 
simplest  rules  of  gravitation  could 
not  be  made  to  stay  up." 

"  No  doubt  you  are  correct,"  said 
Mr.  Whitechoker,  meekly.  "  I  did  not 
mean  that  I  expected  ever  to  see  a 
trolley-road  across  the  sea,  but  I  did 
mean  to  say  that  man  has  made  such 
wonderful  advances  in  the  past  hun 
dred  years  that  we  cannot  really  state 
the  limit  of  his  possibilities.  It  is 
manifest  that  no  one  to-day  can  de 
vise  a  plan  by  means  of  which  such 
a  wire  could  be  carried,  but — " 

"  I  fear  you  gentlemen  would  starve 
as  inventors, ' '  said  the  Idiot.  * '  What's 
the  matter  with  balloons?" 

"Balloons  for  what?"  retorted  Mr. 
Pedagog. 

"  For  holding  up  the  trolley- wires," 
replied  the  Idiot.  "It  is  perfectly 
41 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

feasible.  Fasten  the  ends  of  your 
wire  in  London  and  New  York,  and 
from  coast  to  coast  station  two  lines 
of  sufficient  strength  to  keep  the 
wire  raised  as  far  above  the  level  of 
the  sea  as  you  require.  That's  sim 
ple  enough." 

"And  what,  pray,  in  this  frenzy  of 
the  elements,  this  raging  storm  of 
which  you  have  spoken,"  said  Mr. 
Pedagog,  impatiently — "what  would 
then  keep  your  balloons  from  blow 
ing  away?" 

"The  trolley- wire,  of  course,"  said 
the  Idiot.  Mr.  Pedagog  lapsed  into 
a  hopelessly  wrathful  silence  for  a 
moment,  and  then  he  said: 

"Well,  I  sincerely  hope  your  plan 
is  adopted,  and  that  the  promoters 
will  make  you  superintendent,  with 
an  office  in  the  mid-ocean  balloon." 

"Thanks  for  your  good  wishes, 
Mr.  Pedagog,"  the  Idiot  answered. 
"  If  they  are  realized  I  shall  remem 
ber  them,  and  show  my  gratitude  to 
42 


Transatlantic  Trolley  Company 

you  by  using  my  influence  to  have 
you  put  in  charge  of  the  gas  service. 
Meantime,  however,  it  seems  to  me 
that  our  ocean  steamships  could  be 
developed  along  logical  lines  so  that 
the  trip  from  New  York  to  Liverpool 
could  be  made  in  a  very  much  shorter 
period  of  time  than  is  now  required." 

"We  are  getting  back  to  the  com 
mon-sense  again,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac.  "That  is  a  proposition  to 
which  I  agree.  Ten  years  ago  eight 
days  was  considered  a  good  trip. 
With  the  development  of  the  twin- 
screw  steamer  the  time  has  been  re 
duced  to  approximately  six  days." 

"Or  a  saving,  really,  of  two  days 
because  of  the  extra  screw,"  said  the 
Idiot. 

"Precisely,"  observed  the  Biblio 
maniac. 

"So  that,  provided  there  are  extra 
screws  enough,  there  isn't  any  reason 
why  the  trip  should  not  be  made  in 
two  or  three  hours." 
43 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"Ah  —  what  was  that?"  said  the 
Bibliomaniac.  "I  don't  exactly  fol 
low  you." 

"One  extra  screw,  you  say,  has 
saved  two  days?" 

"Yes." 

"  Then  two  extra  screws  would  save 
four  days,  three  would  save  six  days, 
and  five  extra  screws  would  send  the 
boat  over  in  approximately  no  time," 
said  the  Idiot.  "  So,  if  it  takes  a  man 
two  hours  to  succumb  to  sea -sick 
ness,  a  boat  going  over  in  less  than 
that  time  would  eliminate  sea -sick 
ness;  more  people  would  go;  boats 
could  run  every  hour,  and  Mr.  White- 
choker  could  have  a  European  trip 
every  week  without  deserting  his  con 
gregation." 

"Inestimable  boon!"  cried  Mr. 
Whitechoker,  with  a  laugh. 

"Wouldn't  it  be!"  said  the  Idiot. 

"  Unless  I  change  my  mind,  I  think  I 

shall  stay  in  this  country  until  this 

style  of  greyhound  is  perfected.  Then, 

44 


Transatlantic  Trolleg  Company 

gentlemen,  I  shall  tear  myself  away 
from  you,  and  seek  knowledge  in  for 
eign  pastures." 

"Well,  I  am  sure,"  said  Mr.  Peda- 
gog — "I  am  sure  that  we  all  hope 
you  will  change  your  mind." 

"  Then  you  want  me  to  go  abroad  ?" 
said  the  Idiot. 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "No- 
not  so  much  that  as  that  we  feel  if 
you  were  to  change  your  mind  the 
change  could  not  fail  to  be  for  the 
better.  A  mind  like  yours  ought  to 
be  changed." 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  said  the  Id 
iot.  "  I  suppose  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  if  I  broke  it  up  into  smaller 
denominations,  but  I've  had  it  so 
long  that  I  have  become  attached 
to  it ;  but  there  is  one  thing  about  it, 
there  is  plenty  of  it,  so  that  in  case 
any  of  you  gentlemen  find  your  own 
insufficient  I  shall  be  only  too  happy 
to  give  you  a  piece  of  it  without 
charge.  Meanwhile,  if  Mrs.  Pedagog 
45 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

will  kindly  let  me  have  my  bill  for 
last  week,  I'll  be  obliged." 

"It  won't  be  ready  until  to-mor 
row,  Mr.  Idiot,"  said  the  landlady,  in 
surprise. 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  the  Idiot,  rising. 
"  My  scribbling  -  paper  has  run  out. 
I  wanted  to  put  in  this  morning  writ 
ing  a  poem  on  the  back  of  it." 

* '  A  poem  ?  What  about  ?' '  said  Mr. 
Pedagog,  with  an  irritating  chuckle. 

"It  was  to  be  a  triolet  on  Om 
niscience,"  said  the  Idiot.  "And, 
strange  to  say,  sir,  you  were  to  be 
the  hero,  if  by  any  possibility  I  could 
squeeze  you  into  a  French  form." 


IV 
The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

HOW  is  business  these  days,  Mr. 
Idiot?"  asked  the  Poet,  as  the 
one  addressed  laid  down  the  morning 
paper  with  a  careworn  expression  on 
his  face.     "Good,  I  hope?" 

"Fair,  only,"  replied  the  Idiot. 
"My  honored  employer  was  quite 
blue  about  things  yesterday,  and  if  I 
hadn't  staved  him  off  I  think  he'd 
have  proposed  swapping  places  with 
me.  He  has  said  quite  often  of  late 
that  I  had  the  best  of  it,  because  all 
I  had  to  earn  was  my  salary,  whereas 
he  had  to  earn  my  salary  and  his  own 
living  besides.  I  offered  to  give  him 
ten  per  cent,  of  my  salary  for  ten  per 
cent,  of  his  living,  but  he  said  he 
47 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

guessed  he  wouldn't,  adding  that  I 
seemed  to  be  as  great  an  Idiot  as 
ever." 

"I  fancy  he  was  right  there,"  said 
Mr.  Pedagog.  "I  should  really  like 
to  know  how  a  man  of  your  peculiar 
mental  construction  can  be  of  the 
slightest  practical  value  to  a  banker. 
I  ask  the  question  in  all  kindness,  too, 
meaning  to  cast  no  reflections  what 
ever  upon  either  you  or  your  em 
ployer.  You  are  a  roaring  success  in 
your  own  line,  which  is  all  any  one 
could  ask  of  you." 

"There's  hominy  for  you,  as  the 
darky  said  to  the  hotel  guest,"  re 
turned  the  Idiot.  "Any  person  who 
says  that  discord  exists  at  this  ta 
ble  doesn't  know  what  he  is  talking 
about.  Even  the  oil  and  the  vine 
gar  mix  in  the  caster  —  that  is,  I 
judge  they  do  from  the  oleaginous 
appearance  of  the  vinegar.  But  I 
am  very  useful  to  my  employer,  Mr. 
Pedagog.  He  says  frequently  that 
48 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

he  wouldn't  know  what  not  to  do  if 
it  were  not  for  me." 

"  Aren't  you  losing  control  of  your 
tongue?"  queried  the  Bibliomaniac, 
looking  at  the  Idiot  in  wonderment. 
"  Don't  you  mean  that  he  says  he 
wouldn't  know  what  to  do  if  it  were 
not  for  you?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I 
never  lose  control  of  my  tongue.  I 
meant  exactly  what  I  said.  Mr.  Bar 
low  told  me,  in  so  many  words,  that 
if  it  were  not  for  me  he  wouldn't 
know  what  not  to  do.  He  calls  me 
his  Back  Action  Patent  Reversible 
Counsellor.  If  he  is  puzzled  over  an 
intricate  point  he  sends  for  me  and 
says:  'Such  and  such  a  thing  being 
the  case,  Mr.  Idiot,  what  would  you 
do?  Don't  think  about  it,  but  tell 
me  on  impulse.  Your  thoughtless 
opinions  are  worth  more  to  me  than 
I  can  tell  you.'  So  I  tell  him  on  im 
pulse  just  what  I  should  do,  where 
upon  he  does  the  other  thing,  and 
49 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

comes  out  ahead  in 'nine  cases  out  of 
ten." 

"And  you  confess  it,  eh?"  said  the 
Doctor,  with  a  curve  on  his  lip. 

"I  certainly  do,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"The  world  must  take  me  for  what 
I  am.  I'm  not  going  to  be  one  thing 
for  myself,  and  build  up  a  fictitious 
Idiot  for  the  world.  The  world  calls 
you  men  of  pretence  conceited,  where 
as,  by  pretending  to  be  something 
that  you  are  not,  you  give  to  the 
world  what  I  should  call  convincing 
evidence  that  you  are  not  at  all  con 
ceited,  but  rather  somewhat  ashamed 
of  what  you  know  yourselves  to  be. 
Now,  I  rather  believe  in  conceit- 
real  honest  pride  in  yourself  as  you 
know  yourself  to  be.  I  am  an  Idiot, 
and  it  is  my  ambition  to  be  a  perfect 
Idiot.  If  I  had  been  born  a  jackass, 
I  should  have  endeavored  to  be  a 
perfect  jackass." 

"You'd  have  found  it  easy,"  said 
Mr.  Pedagog,  dryly. 
5° 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

"Would  I?"  said  the  Idiot.  "Til 
have  to  take  your  word  for  it,  sir,  for/ 
have  never  been  a  jackass,  and  so  can 
not  form  an  opinion  on  the  subject." 

"Pride  goeth  before  a  fall,"  said 
Mr.  Whitechoker,  seeing  a  chance  to 
work  in  a  moral  reflection. 

"Exactly,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"Wherefore  I  admire  pride.  It  is  a 
danger-signal  that  enables  man  to 
avoid  the  fall.  If  Adam  had  had 
any  pride  he'd  never  have  fallen — 
but  speaking  about  my  controlling 
my  tongue,  it  is  not  entirely  out  of 
the  range  of  possibilities  that  I  shall 
lose  control  of  myself." 

"I  expected  that,  sooner  or  later," 
said  the  Doctor.  "  Is  it  to  be  Bloom- 
ingdale  or  a  private  mad-house  you 
are  going  to?" 

"Neither,"  replied  the  Idiot,  calm 
ly.  "I  shall  stay  here.  For,  as  the 
poet  says, 

"  '  Tis  best  to  bear  the  ills  we  hov 
Nor  fly  to  those  we  know  not  of.'" 


Indentions  of  the  Idiot 


"Ho!"  jeered  the  Poet.  "I  must 
confess,  my  dear  Idiot,  that  I  do  not 
think  you  are  a  success  in  quotation. 
Hamlet  spoke  those  lines  differently." 

"Shakespeare's  Hamlet  did.  My 
little  personal  Shakespeare  makes  his 
Hamlet  an  entirely  different,  less  stilt 
ed  sort  of  person,"  said  the  Idiot. 

"  You  have  a  personal  Shakespeare, 
have  you?"  queried  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"Of  course  I  have,"  the  Idiot  an 
swered.  "Haven't  you?" 

"I  have  not,"  said  the  Biblioma 
niac,  shortly. 

"Well,  I'm  sorry  for  you  then," 
sighed  the  Idiot,  putting  a  fried  po 
tato  in  his  mouth.  "Very  sorry. 
I  wouldn't  give  a  cent  for  another 
man's  ideals.  I  want  my  own 
ideals,  and  I  have  my  own  ideal 
of  Shakespeare.  In  fancy,  Shake 
speare  and  I  have  roamed  over  the 
fields  of  Warwickshire  together,  and 
I've  had  more  fun  imagining  the 
kind  of  things  he  and  I  would  have 
52 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

said  to  each  other  than  I  ever  got 
out  of  his  published  plays,  few  of 
which  have  escaped  the  ungentle 
hands  of  the  devastators." 

"You  mean  commentators,  I  im 
agine,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"I  do,"  said  the  Idiot.  "It's  all 
the  same,  whether  you  call  them 
commentors  or  devastators.  The  re 
sult  is  the  same.  New  editions  of 
Shakespeare  are  issued  every  year, 
and  people  buy  them  to  see  not  what 
Shakespeare  has  written,  but  what 
new  quip  some  opinionated  devasta 
tor  has  tried  to  fasten  on  his  memory. 
In  a  hundred  years  from  now  the 
works  of  Shakespeare  will  differ  as 
much  from  what  they  are  to-day 
as  to-day's  versions  differ  from  what 
they  were  when  Shakespeare  wrote 
them.  It's  mighty  discouraging  to 
one  like  myself  who  would  like  to 
write  works." 

"You  are  convicted  out  of  your 
own  mouth,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac. 
53 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

"A  moment  since  you  wasted  your 
pity  on  me  because  I  didn't  muti 
late  Shakespeare  so  as  to  make  him 
my  own,  and  now  you  attack  the 
commentators  for  doing  precisely  the 
same  thing.  They're  as  much  en 
titled  to  their  opinions  as  you  are  to 
yours." 

"Did  you  ever  learn  to  draw  par 
allels  when  you  were  in  school?" 
asked  the  Idiot. 

"  I  did,  and  I  think  I've  made  a 
perfect  parallel  in  this  case.  You  at 
tack  people  in  one  breath  for  what 
you  commiserate  me  for  not  doing  in 
another,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"  Not  exactly,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I 
don't  object  to  the  commentators  for 
commentating,  but  I  do  object  to 
their  putting  out  their  versions  of 
Shakespeare  as  Shakespeare.  I 
might  as  well  have  my  edition  pub 
lished.  It  certainly  would  be  popu 
lar,  especially  where,  in '  Julius  Cassar,' 
I  introduce  five  Cassiuses  and  have 
54 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

them  all  fall  on  their  swords  togeth 
er  with  military  precision,  like  a 
'  Florodora  '  sextette,  for  instance." 

"Well,  I  hope  you'll  never  print 
such  an  atrocity  as  that,"  cried  the 
Bibliomaniac,  hotly.  "  If  there's  one 
thing  in  literature  without  excuse 
and  utterly  contemptible  it  is  the 
comic  version,  the  parody  of  a  master 
piece." 

"You  need  have  no  fear  on  that 
score,"  returned  the  Idiot.  "I 
haven't  time  to  rewrite  Shakespeare, 
and,  since  I  try  never  to  stop  short  of 
absolute  completeness,  I  shall  not  em 
bark  on  the  enterprise.  If  I  do,  how 
ever,  I  shall  not  do  as  the  commenta 
tors  do,  and  put  on  my  title-page 
4  Shakespeare.  Edited  by  Willie  Wil- 
kins,'  but  'Shakespeare  As  He  Might 
Have  Been,  Had  His  Plays  Been 
Written  By  An  Idiot.'" 

"I  have  no  doubt  that  you  could 
do  great  work  with  '  Hamlet,'  "  ob 
served  the  Poet. 
5  55 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"  I  think  so  myself,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"  But  I  shall  never  write  '  Hamlet/  I 
don't  want  to  have  my  fair  fame  ex 
posed  to  the  merciless  hands  of  the 
devastators." 

"I  shall  never  cease  to  regret," 
said  Mr.  Pedagog,  after  a  moment's 
thought,  "that  you  are  so  timid.  I 
should  very  much  like  to  see  'The 
Works  of  the  Idiot.'  I  admit  that 
my  desire  is  more  or  less  a  morbid 
one.  It  is  quite  on  a  plane  with  the 
feeling  that  prompts  me  to  wish  to 
see  that  unfortunate  man  on  the 
Bowery  who  exhibits  his  forehead, 
which  is  sixteen  inches  high,  begin 
ning  with  his  eyebrows,  for  a  dime. 
The  strange,  the  bizarre  in  nature, 
has  always  interested  me.  The  more 
unnatural  the  nature,  the  more  I 
gloat  upon  it.  From  that  point  of 
view  I  do  most  earnestly  hope  that 
when  you  are  inspired  with  a  work 
you  will  let  me  at  least  see  it." 

"Very  well,"  answered  the  Idiot. 
56 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

"I  shall  put  your  name  down  as  a 
subscriber  to  the  Idiot  Monthly  Mag 
azine,  which  some  of  my  friends  con 
template  publishing.  That  is  what 
I  mean  when  I  say  I  may  shortly 
lose  control  of  myself.  These  friends 
of  mine  profess  to  have  been  so  im 
pressed  by  my  dicta  that  they  have 
asked  me  if  I  would  allow  myself  to 
be  incorporated  into  a  stock  com 
pany,  the  object  of  which  should  be 
to  transform  my  personality  into 
printed  pages.  Hardly  a  day  goes 
by  but  I  devote  a  portion  of  my  time 
to  a  poem  in  which  the  thought  is 
conspicuous  either  by  its  absence  or 
its  presence.  My  schemes  for  the 
amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the 
civilized  are  notorious  among  those 
who  know  me;  my  views  on  current 
topics  are  eagerly  sought  for;  my 
business  instinct,  as  I  have  already 
told  you,  is  invaluable  to  my  em 
ployer,  and  my  fiction  is  unsurpassed 
in  its  fictitiousness.  What  more  is 
57 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

needed  for  a  magazine?  You  have 
the  poetry,  the  philanthropy,  the 
man  of  to-day,  the  fictitiousness,  and 
the  business  instinct  necessary  for  the 
successful  modern  magazine  all  con 
centrated  in  one  person.  Why  not 
publish  that  person,  say  my  friends, 
and  I,  feeling  as  I  do  that  no  man 
has  a  right  to  the  selfish  enjoyment 
of  the  great  gifts  nature  has  bestowed 
upon  him,  of  course  can  only  agree. 
I  am  to  be  incorporated  with  a  cap 
ital  stock  of  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  One  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars'  worth  of  myself  I  am  to  be 
permitted  to  retain  ;  the  rest  my 
friends  will  subscribe  for  at  fifty 
cents  on  the  dollar.  If  any  of 
you  want  shares  in  the  enterprise  I 
have  no  doubt  you  can  be  accom 
modated." 

"  I'm  obliged  to  you  for  the  oppor 
tunity,"    said   the   Doctor.     "  But   I 
have  to  be  very  careful  about  things  I 
take  stock  in,  and  in  general  I  regard 
58   ' 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

you  as  a  thing  in  which  I  should  pre 
fer  not  to  take  stock." 

"  And  I,"  observed  Mr.  Pedagog— 
' '  I  have  never  up  to  this  time  taken 
any  stock  in  you,  and  I  make  it  a  rule 
to  be  guided  in  life  by  precedent. 
Therefore  I  must  be  counted  out." 

"I'll  wait  until  you  are  listed  at  the 
Stock  Exchange,"  put  in  the  Biblio 
maniac,  "  while  thanking  you  just  the 
same  for  the  chance." 

"You  can  put  me  down  for  one 
share,  to  be  paid  for  in  poetry,"  said 
the  Poet,  with  a  wink  at  the  Idiot. 

"  You'll  never  make  good,"  said 
the  Idiot,  slyly. 

"And  I,"  said  the  Genial  Old  Gen 
tleman  who  occasionally  imbibes, 
4 '  shall  be  most  happy  to  take  five 
shares  to  be  paid  for  in  advice  and 
high-balls.  Moreover,  if  your  com 
pany  needs  good-will  to  establish  its 
enterprise,  you  may  count  upon  me 
for  unlimited  credit." 

11  Oh,  as  for  that,"  said  the  Idiot,  "  I 
59 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

have  plenty  of  good -will.  Even  Mr. 
Pedagog  supplies  me  with  more  of  it 
than  I  deserve,  though  by  no  means 
with  all  that  I  desire." 

''That  good -will  is  yours  as  an 
individual,  Mr.  Idiot,"  returned  the 
School-master.  "As  a  corporation, 
however,  I  cannot  permit  you  to 
trade  upon  me  even  for  that.  Your 
value  is,  in  my  eyes,  entirely  too 
fluctuating." 

"And  it  is  in  the  fluctuating  stock 
that  the  great  fortunes  are  made,  Mr. 
Pedagog,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  As  an  in 
dividual  I  appreciate  your  good- will. 
As  a  corporation  I  am  soulless,  with 
out  emotions,  and  so  cherish  no  dis 
appointments  over  your  refusal.  I 
think  if  the  scheme  goes  through  it 
will  be  successful,  and  I  fully  expect 
to  see  the  day  when  Idiot  Preferred 
will  be  selling  as  high,  if  not  higher, 
than  Steel,  and  leaving  utterly  be 
hind  any  other  industrial  that  ever 
was  known,  copper  or  rope." 
60 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

"If,  like  the  railways,  you  could 
issue  betterment  bonds  you  might  do 
very  well,"  said  the  Doctor.  "I 
think  ten  million  dollars  spent  in  bet 
tering  you  might  bring  you  up  to 
par." 

"Or  a  consolidated  first-mortgage 
bond,"  remarked  the  Bibliomaniac. 
"Consolidate  the  Idiot  with  a  man 
like  Chamberlain  or  the  German  Em 
peror,  and  issue  a  five-million-dollar 
mortgage  on  the  result,  and  you  might 
find  people  who'd  take  those  bonds  at 
seventy-five." 

"You  might  if  they  were  a  dollar 
bond  printed  on  cartridge-paper," 
said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "  Then  purchasers 
could  paper  their  walls  with  them." 

"  Rail  on,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I  can 
stand  it.  When  I  begin  paying  quar 
terly  dividends  at  a  ten-per-cent.  rate 
you'll  wish  you  had  come  in." 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  said 
Mr.  Pedagog.  "  It  would  entirely  de 
pend." 

61 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"On  what?"  queried  the  Idiot,  un 
warily. 

"  On  whether  that  ten  per  cent,  was 
declared  upon  your  own  estimate  of 
your  value  or  upon  ours.  On  yours 
it  would  be  fabulous;  on  ours — oh, 
well,  what  is  the  use  of  saying  any 
thing  more  about  it.  We  are  not  go 
ing  in  it,  and  that's  an  end  to  it." 

"Well,  I'll  go  in  it  if  you  change 
your  scheme,"  said  the  Doctor.  "If 
instead  of  an  Idiot  Publishing  Com 
pany  you  will  try  to  float  yourself  as  a 
Consolidated  Gas  Company  you  may 
count  on  me  to  take  a  controlling  in 
terest." 

"  I  will  submit  the  proposition  to 
my  friends,"  said  the  Idiot,  calmly. 
"  It  would  be  something  to  turn  out 
an  honest  gas  company,  which  I 
should,  of  course,  try  to  be,  but  I 
am  afraid  the  public  will  not  accept 
it.  There  is  little  demand  for  laugh 
ing-gas,  and,  besides,  they  would  fear 
to  intrust  you  with  a  controlling  in- 
62 


The  Incorporation  of  the  Idiot 

terest  for  fear  that  you  might  blow 
the  product  out  and  the  bills  up — 
coining  millions  by  mere  inflation. 
They've  heard  of  you,  Doctor,  and 
they  know  that  is  the  sort  of  thing 
you'd  be  likely  to  do." 


V 
Unioersitg  Extension 

1WAS  surprised  and  gratified  last 
evening,  Mr.  Idiot,"  observed  the 
School-master  as  breakfast  was  served, 
* '  to  see  you  at  the  University  Exten 
sion  Lecture.  I  did  not  know  that 
you  admitted  the  necessity  of  further 
instruction  in  any  matter  pertaining 
to  human  knowledge." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  do  admit 
the  necessity,"  returned  the  Idiot. 
"  Sometimes  when  I  take  an  inventory 
of  the  contents  of  my  mind  it  seems 
to  me  that  about  everything  I  need 
is  there." 

"There  you  go  again!"  said  the 
Bibliomaniac.  "Why  do  you  persist 
in  your  refusal  to  allow  any  one  to 
64 


Unioersity  Extension 

get  a  favorable  impression  concern 
ing  you?  Mr.  Pedagog  unbends  suf 
ficiently  to  tell  you  that  you  have  at 
last  done  something  which  he  can 
commend,  and  you  greet  him  with  an 
Idiotism  which  is  practically  a  re 
buff." 

"Very  well  said,"  observed  the 
School-master,  with  an  acquiescent 
nod.  "  I  came  to  this  table  this  morn 
ing  encouraged  to  believe  that  this 
young  man  was  beginning  to  see  the 
error  of  his  ways,  and  I  must  confess 
to  a  great  enough  interest  in  him  to 
say  that  I  was  pleased  at  that  encour 
agement.  I  saw  him  at  a  lecture  on 
literature  at  the  Lyceum  Hall  last 
evening,  and  he  appeared  to  be  inter 
ested,  and  yet  this  morning  he  seems 
to  show  that  he  is  utterly  incorrigible. 
May  I  ask,  sir,  why  you  attended  that 
lecture  if,  as  you  say,  your  mind  is  al 
ready  sufficiently  well  furnished?" 

"  Certainly  you  may  ask  that  ques 
tion,"  replied  the  Idiot.  "I  went  to 
65 


The  indentions  of  the  Idiot 

that  lecture  to  have  my  impressions 
confirmed,  that  is  all.  I  have  cer 
tain  well-defined  notions  concerning 
University  Extension,  and  I  wished 
to  see  if  they  were  correct.  I  found 
that  they  were." 

"  The  lecture  was  not  upon  Univer 
sity  Extension,  but  upon  Romanti 
cism,  and  it  was  a  most  able  dis 
course,"  retorted  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"Very  likely,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I 
did  not  hear  it.  I  did  not  want  to 
hear  it.  I  have  my  own  ideas  con 
cerning  Romanticism,  which  do  not 
need  confirmation  or  correction.  I 
have  already  confirmed  and  cor 
rected  them.  I  went  to  see  the  au 
dience  and  not  to  hear  Professor 
Peterkin  exploding  theories." 

"  It  is  a  pity  the  chair  you  occupied 
was  wasted  upon  you,"  snapped  Mr. 
Pedagog. 

"  I  agree  with  you,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"  I  could  have  got  a  much  better  view 
of  the  audience  if  I  had  been  per- 
66 


University  Extension 

mitted  to  sit  on  the  stage,  but  Pro 
fessor  Peterkin  needed  all  that  for  his 
gestures.  However,  I  saw  enough 
from  where  I  sat  to  confirm  my  im 
pression  that  University  Extension  is 
not  so  much  of  a  public  benefit  as  a 
social  fad.  There  was  hardly  a  soul 
in  the  audience  who  could  not  have 
got  all  that  Professor  Peterkin  had  to 
tell  him  out  of  his  books;  there  was 
hardly  a  soul  in  the  audience  who 
could  not  have  afforded  to  pay  one 
dollar  at  least  for  the  seat  he  occu 
pied;  there  was  not  a  soul  in  the  au 
dience  who  had  paid  more  than  ten 
cents  for  his  seat  or  her  seat,  and  those 
for  whose  benefit  the  lecture  was  pre 
sumably  given,  the  ten-cent  people, 
were  crowded  out.  The  lectures  them 
selves  are  not  instructive — Professor 
Peterkin' s  particularly — except  in  so 
far  as  it  is  instructive  to  hear  what 
Professor  Peterkin  thinks  on  this  or 
that  subject,  and  his  desire  to  be 
original  forces  him  to  cook  up  views 
67 


The  ItiDentions  of  the  Idiot 

which  no  one  else  ever  held,  with  the 
result  that  what  he  says  is  most  in 
teresting  and  proper  to  be  presented 
to  the  attention  of  a  discriminating 
audience,  but  not  proper  to  be  pre 
sented  to  an  audience  that  is  sup 
posed  to  come  there  to  receive  in 
struction." 

"You  have  just  said  that  you  did 
not  listen  to  the  lecture.  How  do 
you  know  that  what  you  say  is  true?" 
put  in  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"I  know  Professor  Peterkin,"  said 
the  Idiot. 

"Does  he  know  you?"  sneered  Mr. 
Pedagog. 

"I  don't  think  he  would  remem 
ber  me  if  you  should  speak  my  name 
in  his  presence,"  observed  the  Idiot, 
calmly.  * '  But  that  is  easily  account 
ed  for.  The  Professor  never  remem 
bers  anybody  but  himself." 

"Well,  I  admit,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog, 
"that  the  Professor's  lectures  were 
rather  advanced  for  the  comprehen- 
68 


University  Extension 

sion  of  a  person  like  the  Idiot,  never 
theless  it  was  an  enjoyable  occasion, 
and  I  doubt  if  the  fulminations  of  our 
friend  here  will  avail  against  Univer 
sity  Extension." 

"You  speak  a  sad  truth,"  said  the 
Idiot.  ' '  Social  fads  are  impervious  to 
fulmination,  as  Solomon  might  have 
said  had  he  thought  of  it.  As  long  as 
a  thing  is  a  social  fad  it  will  thrive, 
and,  on  the  whole,  perhaps  it  ought 
to  thrive.  Anything  which  gives  so 
ciety  something  to  think  about  has 
its  value,  and  the  mere  fact  that  it 
makes  society  think  is  proof  of  that 
value." 

''We  seem  to  be  in  a  philosophic 
frame  of  mind  this  morning,"  said 
Mr.  Whitechoker. 

"We  are,"  returned  the  Idiot. 
"That's  one  thing  about  University 
Extension.  It  makes  us  philosophic. 
It  has  made  a  stoic  of  my  dear  old 
daddy." 

"Oh  yes!"  cried  Mr.  Pedagog. 
69 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"You   have   a   father,  haven't   you? 
I  had  forgotten  that." 

"  Wherein,"  said  the  Idiot,  "  we  dif 
fer.  /  haven't  forgotten  that  I  have 
one,  and,  by-the-way,  it  is  from  him 
that  I  first  heard  of  University  Ex 
tension.  He  lives  in  a  small  manu 
facturing  town  not  many  miles  from 
here,  and  is  distinguished  in  the  town 
because,  without  being  stingy,  he  lives 
within  his  means.  He  has  a  way  of 
paying  his  grocer's  bills  which  makes 
of  him  a  marked  man.  He  hasn't 
much  more  money  than  he  needs,  but 
when  the  University  Extension  move 
ment  reached  the  town  he  was  inter 
ested.  The  prime  movers  in  the  en 
terprise  went  to  him  and  asked  him 
if  he  wouldn't  help  it  along,  dilating 
upon  the  benefits  which  would  accrue 
to  those  whose  education  stopped 
short  with  graduation  from  the  high- 
schools.  It  was  most  plausible.  The 
notion  that  for  ten  cents  a  lecture  the 
working  masses  could  learn  some- 
70 


Unioersitg  Extension 

thing  about  art,  history,  and  letters, 
could  gather  in  something  about  the 
sciences,  and  all  that,  appealed  to 
him,  and  while  he  could  afford  it 
much  more  ill  than  the  smart  people, 
the  four  hundred  of  the  town,  he 
chipped  in.  He  paid  fifty  dollars  and 
was  made  an  honorary  manager.  He 
was  proud  enough  of  it,  too,  and  he 
wrote  a  long,  enthusiastic  letter  to  me 
about  it.  It  was  a  great  thing,  and 
he  hoped  the  State,  which  had  been 
appealed  to  to  help  the  movement 
along,  would  take  a  hand  in  it.  '  If 
we  educate  the  masses  to  understand 
and  to  appreciate  the  artistic,  the 
beautiful,'  he  wrote,  'we  need  have 
little  fear  for  the  future.  Ignorance  is 
the  greatest  foe  we  have  to  contend 
against  in  our  national  development, 
and  it  is  the  only  thing  that  can  over 
throw  a  nation  such  as  ours  is.'  And 
then  what  happened?  Professor  Pe- 
terkin  came  along  and  delivered  ten 
or  a  dozen  lectures.  The  masses  went 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

once  or  twice  and  found  the  platform 
occupied  by  a  man  who  talked  to 
them  about  Romanticism  and  Real 
ism  ;  who  told  them  that  Dickens  was 
trash ;  who  exalted  Tolstoi  and  Ibsen ; 
but  who  never  let  them  into  the  se 
cret  of  what  Romanticism  was,  and 
who  kept  them  equally  in  the  dark  as 
to  the  significance  of  Realism.  They 
also  found  the  best  seats  in  the  lect 
ure-hall  occupied  by  the  smart  set  in 
full  evening-dress,  who  talked  almost 
as  much  and  as  loudly  as  did  Pro 
fessor  Peterkin.  The  masses  did  not 
even  learn  manners  at  Professor  Pe 
terkin' s  first  and  second  lectures,  and 
the  third  and  fourth  found  them  con 
spicuous  by  their  absence.  All  they 
learned  was  that  they  were  ignorant, 
and  that  other  people  were  better 
than  they,  and  what  my  father 
learned  was  that  he  had  subscribed 
fifty  dollars  to  promote  a  series  of 
social  functions  for  the  diversion  of 
the  four  hundred  and  the  aggran- 
72 


Uniuersity  Extension 

dizement  of  Professor  Peterkin.  He 
started  in  for  what  might  be  called 
Romanticism,  and  he  got  a  Realism 
that  he  did  not  like  in  less  time  than 
it  takes  to  tell  of  it,  and  to-day  in  that 
town  University  Extension  is  such  a 
fad  that  when,  some  weeks  ago,  the 
swell  club  of  that  place  talked  of  ap 
pointing  Thursday  evening  as  its 
club  night,  it  was  found  to  be  im 
possible,  for  the  reason  that  it  might 
interfere  with  the  attendance  upon 
the  University  Extension  lectures. 
That,  Mr.  Pedagog,  is  a  matter  of  his 
tory  and  can  be  proven,  and  last 
night's  audience  confirmed  the  im 
pression  which  I  had  formed  from 
what  my  father  had  told  me.  Pro 
fessor  Peterkin 's  lectures  are  interest 
ing  to  you,  a  school-master,  but  they 
are  pure  Greek  to  me,  who  would  like 
to  know  more  about  letters.  I  would 
gather  more  instruction  from  your  ta 
ble-talk  in  an  hour  than  I  could  from 
Professor  Peterkin's  whole  course." 
73 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

"You  flatter  me,"  said  Mr.  Peda- 
gog. 

"No,"  returned  the  Idiot.  " If  you 
knew  how  little  the  ignorant  gain 
from  Peterkin  you  would  not  neces 
sarily  call  it  flattery  if  one  should  say 
he  learned  more  from  your  conversa 
tion  over  a  griddle-cake." 

"You  misconceive  the  whole  situa 
tion,  I  think,  nevertheless,"  said  Mr. 
Whitechoker.  "As  I  understand  it, 
supplementary  lectures,  and  examina 
tions  based  on  them,  are  held  after  the 
lectures,  when  the  practical  instruc 
tion  is  given  with  great  thorough 
ness." 

"I'm  glad  you  spoke  of  that,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "  I  had  forgotten  that  part 
of  it.  Professor  Peterkin  received 
pay  for  his  lectures,  which  dealt  in 
theories  only;  plain  Mr.  Barton,  who 
delivered  the  supplementary  lect 
ures,  got  nothing.  Professor  Peter- 
kin  taught  nothing,  but  he  represent 
ed  University  Extension.  Plain  Mr. 
74 


Unioersitg  Extension 

Barton  did  the  work  and  represent 
ed  nothing.  Both  reached  society. 
Neither  reached  the  masses.  In  my 
native  town  plain  Mr.  Barton's  sup 
plementary  lectures,  which  were  sim 
ply  an  effort  to  unravel  the  Peterkin 
complications,  were  attended  by  the 
same  people  in  smaller  crowds — peo 
ple  of  social  standing  who  were  curi 
ous  enough  to  devote  an  hour  a  week 
to  an  endeavor  to  find  out  the  mean 
ing  of  what  Professor  Peterkin  had 
told  them  at  the  function  the  week 
before.  The  students  examined  were 
mostly  ladies,  and  I  happen  to  know 
that  in  a  large  proportion  they  were 
ladies  whose  husbands  could  have  af 
forded  to  pay  Professor  Peterkin  his 
salary  ten  times  over  as  a  private 
tutor." 

"As  I  look  at  it,"  said  Mr.  Peda- 
gog,  gravely,  "  it  does  not  make  much 
difference  to  whom  your  instruction 
is  given,  so  long  as  it  instructs.  What 
if  these  lectures  do  interest  those  who 
75 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

are  comparatively  well  off?  Your 
society  woman  may  be  as  much  in 
need  of  an  extended  education  as 
your  factory  girl.  The  University 
Extension  idea  is  to  convey  knowl 
edge  to  people  who  would  not  other 
wise  get  it.  It  simply  sets  out  to 
improve  minds.  If  the  social  mind 
needs  improvement,  why  not  im 
prove  it?  Why  condemn  a  system 
because  it  does  not  discriminate  in 
the  minds  selected  for  improvement?" 
"I  don't  condemn  a  system  which 
sets  out  to  improve  minds  irrespec 
tive  of  conditions,"  replied  the  Idiot. 
"But  I  should  most  assuredly  con 
demn  a  man,  or  a  set  of  men,  who 
induced  me  to  subscribe  to  a  bread 
fund  for  the  poor  and  who  afterwards 
expended  that  money  on  cream-cakes 
for  the  Czar  of  Russia.  The  fact  that 
the  Czar  of  Russia  wanted  the  cream- 
cakes  and  was  willing  to  accept  them 
would  not  affect  my  feelings  in  the 
matter,  though  I  have  no  doubt  the 
76 


UniDersity  Extension 

people  in  charge  of  the  fund  would 
find  themselves  far  more  conspicuous 
for  having  departed  from  the  original 
idea.  Some  of  them  might  be  knight 
ed  for  it  if  the  Czar  happened  to  be 
passionately  fond  of  cream-cakes." 

"Then,  having  attacked  this  sys 
tem,  what  would  you  have?  Would 
you  have  University  Extension  stop?" 
asked  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"Not  at  all,"  returned  the  Idiot. 
"  Anything  which  can  educate  society 
is  a  good  thing,  but  I  should  change 
the  name  of  it  from  University  Ex 
tension  to  Social  Expansion,  and  I 
should  compel  those  whose  minds  were 
broadened  by  it  to  pay  the  bills." 

"  But  as  yet  you  have  failed  to  hit 
the  nail  on  the  head,"  persisted  the 
Bibliomaniac.  "The  masses  can  at 
tend  these  lectures  if  they  wish  to, 
and  on  your  own  statement  they 
don't.  You  don't  seem  to  consider 
that  point,  or,  if  you  do,  you  don't 
meet  it." 

77 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

"  I  don't  think  it  necessary  to  meet 
it,"  said  the  Idiot.  " Though  I  will 
say  that  if  you  were  one  of  the 
masses — a  girl,  say,  with  one  dress, 
threadbare,  poor,  and  ill-fitting,  and 
possessed  of  a  natural  bit  of  pride — 
you  would  find  little  pleasure  in  at 
tending  a  lecture  your  previous  edu 
cation  does  not  permit  of  your  com 
prehending,  and  sitting  through  an 
evening  with  a  lot  of  finely  dressed, 
smart  folk,  with  their  backs  turned 
towards  you.  The  plebeians  have 
some  pride,  my  dear  Bibliomaniac, 
and  they  are  decidedly  averse  to  mix 
ing  with  the  swells.  They  would  like 
to  be  educated,  but  they  don't  care 
to  be  snubbed  for  the  privilege  of  be 
ing  mystified  by  a  man  like  Professor 
Peterkin,  even  for  so  small  a  sum  as 
ten  cents  an  evening." 


VI 
Social   Expansion 

WE  were  talking  about  Univer 
sity  Extension  the  other  day, 
Mr.  Pedagog,"  said  the  Idiot,  as  the 
School-master  folded  up  the  news 
paper  and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  "  and 
I,  as  you  remember,  suggested  that 
it  might  better  be  called  Social  Ex 
pansion." 

"  Did  you?"  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  cold 
ly.  "I  don't  remember  much  about 
it.  I  rarely  make  a  note  of  anything 
you  may  say." 

"Well,  I  did  suggest  the  change  of 
name,  whether  your  memory  is  re 
tentive  or  not,  and  I  have  been  think 
ing  the  matter  over  a  good  deal  since, 
79 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

and  I  think  I've  got  hold  of  an  idea," 
returned  the  Idiot. 

"In  that  case,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac,  "we  would  better  lock  the 
door.  If  you  have  really  got  hold  of 
an  idea  you  should  be  very  careful 
not  to  let  it  get  away  from  you." 

"  No  danger  of  that, "said  the  Idiot, 
with  a  smile.  "I  have  it  securely 
locked  up  here,"  tapping  his  forehead. 

"It  must  be  lonesome,"  said  Mr. 
Pedagog. 

"And  rather  uncomfortable — if  it 
is  a  real  idea,"  observed  the  Doctor. 
"An  idea  in  the  Idiot's  mind  must  feel 
somewhat  as  a  tall,  stout  Irish  maid 
feels  when  she  goes  to  her  bedroom  in 
one  of  those  Harlem  flat-houses." 

"  You  men  are  losing  a  great  oppor 
tunity,"  said  the  Idiot,  with  a  scorn 
ful  glance  at  the  three  professional 
gentlemen.  "The  idea  of  your  fol 
lowing  the  professions  of  pedagogy, 
medicine,  and  literature,  when  the 
three  of  you  combined  could  make  a 
80 


Social  Expansion 

fortune  as  an  incarnate  comic  paper. 
I  don't  see  why  you  don't  make  a 
combination  like  those  German  bands 
that  play  on  the  street  corners,  and 
go  about  from  door  to  door,  and 
crack  your  jokes  just  as  they  crack 
their  music.  I  am  sure  you'd  take, 
particularly  in  front  of  barber 
shops." 

"It  would  be  hard  on  the  comic 
papers,"  said  the  Poet,  who  was  get 
ting  a  little  unpopular  with  his  fellow- 
boarders  because  of  his  tendency,  re 
cently  developed,  to  take  the  Idiot's 
part  in  the  breakfast-table  discussions. 
"  They  might  be  so  successful  that  the 
barber-shops,  instead  of  taking  the 
comic  papers  for  their  customers  to 
read,  would  employ  one  or  more  of 
them  to  sit  in  the  middle  of  the  room 
and  crack  jokes  aloud." 

"We  couldn't  rival  the  comic  pa 
pers  though,"  said  the  Doctor,  wish 
ing  to  save  his  dignity  by  taking  the 
bull  by  the  horns.  "We  might  do 
81 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

the  jokes  well  enough,  but  the  comic 
papers  are  chiefly  pictorial." 

"You'd  be  pictorial  enough,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "Wasn't  it  you,  Mr.  Ped- 
agog,  that  said  the  Doctor  here  look 
ed  like  one  of  Cruikshank's  physi 
cians,  or  as  if  he  had  stepped  out  of 
Dickens' s  pages,  or  something  like  it  ?' ' 

"  I  never  said  anything  of  the  sort ! " 
cried  the  School  -  master,  wrathfully ; 
"and  you  know  I  didn't." 

"Who  was  it  said  that?"  asked  the 
Idiot,  innocently,  looking  about  the 
table.  "It  couldn't  have  been  Mr. 
Whitechoker,  and  I  know  it  wasn't 
the  Poet  or  my  Genial  Friend  who 
occasionally  imbibes.  Mr.  Pedagog 
denies  it ;  I  didn't  say  it ;  Mrs.  Peda 
gog  wouldn't  say  it.  That  leaves  only 
two  of  us — the  Bibliomaniac  and  the 
Doctor  himself.  I  don't  think  the 
Doctor  would  make  a  personal  re 
mark  of  that  kind,  and — well,  there  is 
but  one  conclusion.  Mr.  Biblioma 
niac,  I  am  surprised." 
82 


Social  Expansion 

"What?"  roared  the  Bibliomaniac, 
glaring  at  the  Idiot.  "  Do  you  mean 
to  fasten  the  impertinence  on  me?" 

"Far  from  it,"  returned  the  Idiot, 
meekly.  "Very  far  from  it.  It  is 
fate,  sir,  that  has  done  that — the  cir 
cumstantial  evidence  against  you  is 
strong;  but  then,  mercifully  enough, 
circumstantial  evidence  is  not  per 
mitted  to  hang  a  man." 

"Now  see  here,  Mr.  Idiot,"  said 
the  Bibliomaniac,  firmly  and  impres 
sively,  "I  want  you  to  distinctly  un 
derstand  that  I  am  not  going  to  have 
you  put  words  into  my  mouth  that  I 
never  uttered.  I— 

"Pray,  don't  attack  me,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "I  haven't  made  any  charge 
against  you.  I  only  asked  who 
could  have  said  that  the  Doctor 
looked  like  a  creation  of  Cruikshank. 
I  couldn't  have  said  it,  because  I  don't 
think  it.  Mr.  Pedagog  denies  it.  In 
fact,  every  one  here  has  a  clear  case  of 
innocence  excepting  yourself,  and  I 
83 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

don't  believe  you  said  it,  only  the 
chain  of  circumstance — 

"Oh,  hang  your  chain  of  circum 
stance!"  interrupted  the  Biblioma 
niac. 

"It  is  hung,"  said  the  Idiot,  "and 
it  appears  to  make  you  very  uncom 
fortable.  However,  as  I  was  saying, 
I  think  I  have  got  hold  of  an  idea 
involving  a  truly  philanthropic  and 
by  no  means  selfish  scheme  of  Social 
Expansion." 

"  Heigho ! "  sighed  Mr.  Pedagog.  "  I 
sometimes  think  that  if  I  had  not  the 
honor  to  be  the  husband  of  our  land 
lady  I'd  move  away  from  here.  Your 
views,  sir,  are  undermining  my  con 
stitution." 

"  You  only  think  so,  Mr.  Pedagog," 
replied  the  Idiot.  "  You  are  simply  go 
ing  through  a  process  of  intellectual 
reconstruction  at  my  hands.  You 
feel  exactly  as  a  man  feels  who  has 
been  shut  up  in  the  dark  for  years  and 
suddenly  finds  himself  in  a  flood  of 
84 


Social  Expansion 

sunlight.  I  am  doing  with  you  as  an 
individual  what  I  would  have  society 
do  for  mankind  at  large  —  in  other 
words,  while  I  am  working  for  indi 
vidual  expansion  upon  the  raw  ma 
terial  I  find  here,  I  would  have  society 
buckle  down  to  the  enlargement  of 
itself  by  the  improvement  of  those 
outside  of  itself." 

"If  you  swim  in  water  as  well  as 
you  do  in  verbiage,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac,  "you  must  be  able  to  go 
three  or  four  strokes  without  sink- 
ing." 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,  I  can  swim  like  a 
duck,"  said  the  Idiot.  "You  can't 
sink  me." 

"I  fancied  not,"  observed  Mr.  Ped- 
agog,  with  a  smile  at  his  own  joke. 
"You  are  so  light  I  wonder,  indeed, 
that  you  don't  rise  up  into  space, 
anyhow." 

"What  a  delightful  condition  of  af 
fairs  that  suggestion  opens  up!"  said 
the  Idiot,  turning  to  the  Poet.  "If 
85 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

I  were  you  I'd  make  a  poem  on  that. 
Something  like  this,  for  instance: 

"  I  am  so  very,  very  light 

That  gravitation  curbs  not  me. 

I  rise  up  through  the  atmosphere 

Till  all  the  world  I  plainly  see. 

"  I  dance  about  among  the  clouds, 

An  airy,  happy,  human  kite. 
The  breezes  toss  me  here  and  there, 
To  my  exceeding  great  delight. 

"And  when  I  would  return  to  sup, 

To  breakfast,   or  perchance  to   dine, 
I  haul  myself  once  more  to  earth 
By  tugging  on  a  piece  of  twine." 

Mr.  Pedagog  grinned  broadly  at 
this. 

''You  aren't  entirely  without  your 
good  points,"  he  said.  "If  we  ever 
accept  your  comic-paper  idea  we'll 
have  to  rely  on  you  for  the  nonsense 
poetry." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I'll 
help.  If  I  had  a  man  like  you  to 
give  me  the  suggestions  I  could  make 
86 


Social  Expansion 

a  fortune  out  of  poetry.  The  only 
trouble  is  I  have  to  quarrel  with  you 
before  I  can  get  you  to  give  me  a 
suggestion,  and  I  despise  bickering." 

"So  do  I,"  returned  Mr.  Pedagog. 
"  Let's  give  up  bickering  and  turn  our 
attention  to — er — Social  Extension, 
is  it?" 

"Yes — or  Social  Expansion,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "Some  years  ago  the 
world  was  startled  to  hear  that  in  the 
city  of  New  York  there  were  not  more 
than  four  hundred  people  who  were 
entitled  to  social  position,  and,  as  I 
understand  it,  as  time  has  progressed 
the  number  has  still  further  dimin 
ished.  Last  year  the  number  was 
only  one  hundred  and  fifty,  and,  as  I 
read  the  social  news  of  to-day,  not 
more  than  twenty-five  people  are  now 
beyond  all  question  in  the  swim.  At 
dinners,  balls,  functions  of  all  sorts, 
you  read  the  names  of  these  same 
twenty-five  over  and  over  again  as 
having  been  present.  Apparently  no 
87 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

others  attended — or,  if  they  did,  they 
were  not  so  indisputably  entitled  to 
be  present  that  their  names  could  be 
printed  in  the  published  accounts. 
Now  all  of  this  shows  that  society  is 
dying  out,  and  that  if  things  keep  on 
as  they  are  now  going  it  will  not  be 
many  years  before  we  shall  become  a 
people  without  society,  a  nation  of 
plebeians." 

"  Your  statement  so  far  is  lucid  and 
logical,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  who  did 
not  admire  society — so  called — and 
who  did  not  object  to  the  goring  of  an 
ox  in  which  he  was  not  personally  in 
terested. 

"Well,  why  is  this  social  contrac 
tion  going  on?"  asked  the  Idiot. 
11  Clearly  because  Social  Expansion  is 
not  an  accepted  fact.  If  it  were,  so 
ciety  would  grow.  Why  does  it  not 
grow  ?  Why  are  its  ranks  not  augment 
ed?  There  is  raw  material  enough. 
You  would  like  to  get  into  the  swim ; 
so  would  I.  But  we  don't  know  how. 
88 


Social  Expansion 

We  read  books  of  etiquette,  but  they 
are  far  from  being  complete.  I  think 
I  make  no  mistake  when  I  say  they 
are  utterly  valueless.  They  tell  us  no 
more  than  the  funny  journal  tells  us 
when  it  says: 

"'Never  eat  pease  with  a  spoon; 

Never  eat  pie  with  a  knife; 
Never  put  salt  on  a  prune; 

Never  throw  crumbs  at  your  wife.'" 

They  tell  most  of  us  what  we  all  knew 
before.  They  tell  us  not  to  wear  our 
hats  in  the  house ;  they  tell  us  all  the 
obvious  things,  but  the  subtleties  of 
how  to  get  into  society  they  do  not 
tell  us.  The  comic  papers  give  us 
some  idea  of  how  to  behave  in  society. 
We  know  from  reading  the  funny 
papers  that  a  really  swell  young  man 
always  leans  against  a  mantel-piece 
when  he  is  calling ;  that  the  swell  girl 
sits  on  a  comfortable  divan  with  her 
feet  on  a  tiger-skin  rug,  and  they  con 
verse  in  epigram.  Sometimes  the 
89 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

epigram  is  positively  rude ;  when  it  is 
not  rude  it  is  so  dull  that  no  one 
wonders  that  the  tiger's  head  on  the 
rug  represents  the  tiger  as  yawning. 
But,  while  this  is  instructive,  it  teach 
es  us  how  to  behave  on  special  occa 
sions  only.  You  or  I  might  call  upon 
a  young  woman  who  did  not  sit  on  a 
divan,  who  had  no  tiger-skin  rug  to 
put  her  feet  on,  and  whose  parlor  had 
a  mantel  -  piece  against  which  we 
could  not  lean  comfortably.  What 
are  we  to  do  then?  As  far  as  they 
go,  the  funny  papers  are  excellent, 
but  they  don't  go  far  enough.  They 
give  us  attractive  pictures  of  fash 
ionable  dinners,  but  it  is  always  of 
the  dinner  after  the  game  course. 
Some  of  us  would  like  to  know  how 
society  behaves  while  the  soup  is 
being  served.  We  know  that  after 
the  game  course  society  girls  reach 
across  the  table  and  clink  wine 
glasses  with  young  men,  but  we  do 
not  know  what  they  do  before  they 
90 


Social  Expansion 

get  to  the  clink  stage.  Nowhere  is 
this  information  given.  Etiquette 
books  are  silent  on  the  subject,  and 
though  I  have  sought  everywhere  for 
information,  I  do  not  know  to  this 
day  how  many  salted  almonds  one 
may  consume  at  dinner  without  em 
barrassing  one's  hostess.  Now,  if  I 
can't  find  out,  the  million  can't  find 
out.  Wherefore,  instead  of  shutting 
themselves  selfishly  up  and,  by  so  do 
ing,  forcing  society  finally  into  disso 
lution,  why  cannot  some  of  these 
people  who  know  what  is  what  give 
object-lessons  to  the  million;  edu 
cate  them  in  savoir-faire  ? 

4 'Last  summer  there  was  a  play 
put  on  at  one  of  our  theatres  in  which 
there  was  a  scene  at  a  race  -  track. 
At  one  side  was  a  tally-ho  coach.  For 
the  first  week  the  coach  was  an 
utterly  valueless  accessory,  because 
the  people  on  it  were  the  ordinary 
supers  in  the  employ  of  the  theatre. 
They  did  not  know  how  to  behave  on 
91 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

a  coach,  and  nobody  was  interested. 
The  management  were  suddenly 
seized  with  a  bright  idea.  They  in 
vited  several  swell  young  men  who 
knew  how  things  were  done  on 
coaches  to  come  and  do  these  things 
on  their  coach.  The  young  men 
came  and  imparted  a  realism  to  the 
scene  that  made  that  coach  the  centre 
of  attraction.  People  who  went  to 
that  play  departed  educated  in  coach 
etiquette.  Now  there  lies  my  scheme 
in  a  nutshell.  If  these  twenty-five, 
the  Old  Guard  of  society,  which  dines 
but  never  surrenders,  will  give  once 
a  week  a  social  function  in  some  place 
like  Madison  Square  Garden,  to 
which  the  million  may  go  merely  as 
spectators,  not  as  participators,  is 
there  any  doubt  that  they  would 
fail  to  be  instructed?  The  Garden 
will  seat  eight  or  ten  thousand 
people.  Suppose,  for  an  instance, 
that  a  dozen  of  your  best  exponents 
of  what  is  what  were  to  give  a  dinner 
92 


Social  Expansion 

in  the  middle  of  the  arena,  with  ten 
thousand  people  looking  on.  Do  you 
mean  to  say  that  of  all  that  vast 
audience  no  one  would  learn  thereby 
how  to  behave  at  a  dinner?" 

"It  is  a  great  scheme,"  said  the 
Doctor. 

"  It  is ! "  said  the  Idiot,  "  and  I  vent 
ure  to  say  that  a  course  of,  say,  twelve 
social  functions  given  in  that  way 
would  prove  so  popular  that  the 
Garden  would  turn  away  every  night 
twice  as  many  people  as  it  could  ac 
commodate." 

"  It  would  be  instructive,  no  doubt," 
said  the  Bibliomaniac;  "but  how 
would  it  expand  society  ?  Would  you 
have  examinations?" 

"  Most  assuredly,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"At  the  end  of  the  season  I  should 
have  a  rigid  examination  of  all  who 
chose  to  apply.  I  would  make  them 
dine  in  the  presence  of  a  committee 
of  expert  diners;  I  would  have  them 
pass  a  searching  examination  in  the 
93 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

Art  of  Wearing  a  Dress  Suit,  in  the 
Science  of  Entering  a  Drawing-room, 
in  the  Art  of  Behavior  at  Afternoon 
Teas,  and  all  the  men  who  applied 
should  also  be  compelled  to  pass  a 
physical  examination  as  an  assurance 
that  they  were  equal  to  the  task  of 
getting  an  ice  for  a  young  lady  at  a 
ball." 

"  Society  would  get  to  be  too  inclu 
sive  and  would  cease  to  be  exclusive," 
suggested  Mr.  Whitechoker. 

11 1  think  not,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I 
should  not  give  a  man  or  a  woman  the 
degree  of  B.S.  unless  he  or  she  had 
passed  an  examination  of  one  hun 
dred  per  cent." 

"B.S.?"  queried  Mr.  Pedagog. 

' '  Yes, ' '  returned  the  Idiot.  ' '  Bach 
elor  of  Society — a  degree  which,  once 
earned,  should  entitle  one  to  recog 
nition  as  a  member  of  the  upper  ten 
anywhere  in  Christendom." 

"It  is  superb!"  cried  Mr.  Pedagog, 
enthusiastically. 

94 


Social  Expansion 

"Yes,"  said  the  Idiot.  "At  ten 
cents  a  function  it  would  beat  Uni 
versity  Extension  out  of  sight,  and, 
further,  it  would  preserve  society.  If 
we  lose  society  we  lose  caste,  and, 
worse  than  all,  our  funny  men  would 
have  to  go  out  of  business,  for  there 
would  be  no  fads  or  Willieboys  left  to 
ridicule." 


VII 

A  Beggar's  Hand-booh 

"  IV /IR.  IDIOT,"  said  the  Poet  one 
1 V 1  morning,  as  the  waffles  were 
served /'you  are  an  inventive  genius. 
Why  don't  you  invent  an  easy  way 
to  make  a  fortune  ?  The  trouble  with 
most  methods  of  making  money  is 
that  they  involve  too  much  labor." 

11 1  have  thought  of  that,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "And  yet  the  great  fortunes 
have  been  made  in  a  way  which  in 
volved  very  little  labor,  compara 
tively  speaking.  You,  for  instance, 
probably  work  harder  over  a  yard  of 
poetry  that  brings  you  in  ten  dollars 
than  any  of  our  great  railroad  mag 
nates  have  over  a  mile  of  railroad 
which  has  brought  them  in  a  million." 
96 


A  Beggar's  Hand-book 

"Which  simply  proves  that  it  is 
ideas  that  count  rather  than  labor/' 
said  the  Poet. 

"Not  exactly,"  said  the  Idiot.  "If 
you  put  a  hundred  ideas  into  a 
quatrain  you  will  get  less  money  for 
it  than  you  would  for  a  two-volume 
epic  in  which  you  have  possibly  only 
half  an  idea.  It  isn't  idea  so  much 
as  nerve  that  counts.  The  man  who 
builds  railroads  doesn't  advance  any 
particular  idea,  but  he  shows  lots  of 
nerve,  and  it  is  nerve  that  makes 
wealth.  I  believe  that  if  you  literary 
men  would  show  more  nerve  force 
and  spare  the  public  the  infliction  of 
what  you  call  your  ideas,  you  would 
make  more  money." 

"How  would  you  show  nerve  in 
writing?"  queried  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"  If  I  knew  I'd  write  and  make  my 
fortune,"  said  the  Idiot.  "Unfort 
unately,  I  don't  know  how  one  can 
show  nerve  in  writing,  unless  it  be  in 
taking  hold  of  some  particularly  pop- 
97 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

ular  idiosyncrasy  of  mankind  and 
treating  it  so  contemptuously  that 
every  one  would  want  to  mob  you. 
If  you  could  get  the  public  mad 
enough  at  you  to  want  to  mob  you 
they'd  read  everything  you'd  write, 
simply  to  nourish  their  wrath,  and 
you'd  soon  be  cutting  coupons  for 
a  living,  and  could  then  afford  to 
take  up  more  ideas  —  coupon -cutters 
can  afford  theories.  For  my  own 
part,  one  reason  why  I  do  not  my 
self  take  up  literature  for  a  profes 
sion  is  that  I  have  neither  the  nerve 
nor  the  coupons.  I'd  probably  run 
along  in  the  rut  like  a  majority  of 
the  writers  of  to-day,  and  wouldn't 
have  the  grit  to  strike  out  in  a  new 
line  of  my  own.  Men  say,  and  per 
haps  very  properly,  this  is  the  thing 
that  has  succeeded  in  the  past.  I'll 
do  this.  Something  else  that  ap 
pears  alluring  enough  in  the  abstract 
has  never  been  done,  and  for  that 
reason  I  won't  do  it.  There  have 
98 


A  Beggar's  Hand-booh 

been  clever  men  before  me,  men 
clever  enough  to  think  of  this  some 
thing  that  I  fondly  imagine  is  original, 
and  they  haven't  done  it.  Doubt 
less  they  refrained  from  doing  it  for 
good  and  sufficient  reasons,  and  I  am 
not  going  to  be  fool  enough  to  set 
my  judgment  up  against  theirs.  In 
other  words,  I  lack  the  nerve  to  go 
ahead  and  write  as  I  feel.  I  prefer 
to  study  past  successes,  with  the  re 
sult  that  I  am  moderately  successful 
only.  It's  the  same  way  in  every 
line  of  business.  Precedent  guides  in 
all  things,  but  where  occasionally  you 
find  a  man  courageous  enough  to  cast 
precedent  to  the  winds,  one  of  two 
things  happens.  Either  fortune  or 
ruin  follows.  Hence,  the  thing  to  do 
if  you  want  to  make  a  fortune  is  to 
eliminate  the  possibility  of  ruin  as  far 
as  may  be.  You  cannot  ruin  a  man 
who  has  nothing.  He  is  down  on 
bed-rock,  anyhow ;  so  for  a  receipt  for 
fortune  I  should  say,  start  a  pauper, 
99 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

show  your  nerve,  and  you'll  make  a 
pile,  or  you  won't  make  a  pile.  If 
you  make  it  you  are  fortunate.  If 
you  fail  to  make  it  you  are  no  more 
unfortunate  than  you  were  before 
you  started." 

"For  plausibility,  Mr.  Idiot,"  said 
Mr.  Pedagog,  "you  are  to  me  a  per 
fect  wonder.  I  do  not  think  that 
any  one  can  deny,  with  confidence 
born  of  certainty,  the  truth  of  your 
premises,  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  your  conclusions  are  based 
properly  upon  those  premises,  and 
yet  your  conclusions  are  almost  in 
variably  utterly  absurd,  if  not  abso 
lutely  grotesque.  Here  is  a  man 
who  says,  to  make  a  fortune  become 
a  beggar!" 

"  Precisely,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  There 
is  nothing  like  having  a  clean  slate  to 
work  on.  If  you  are  not  a  beggar 
you  have  something,  and  having 
something  promotes  caution  and 
tends  to  destroy  nerve.  As  a  beggar 
100 


A  Beggar's  Hand-booh 

you  have  everything  to  gain  and 
nothing  to  lose,  so  you  can  plunge. 
You  can  swim  better  in  deep  water 
than  in  the  shallow." 

"Well,"  said  the  Doctor,  " en 
lighten  us  on  this  point.  You  may 
not  know  how  to  show  nerve  as  a 
writer — in  fact,  you  confess  that  you 
don't.  How  would  you  show  nerve 
as  a  beggar?  Would  you  strive  to 
enforce  your  demands  and  degenerate 
into  a  common  highwayman,  or  would 
you  simply  go  in  for  big  profits,  and 
ask  passers-by  for  ten  dollars  instead 
of  ten  cents?" 

"He'd  probably  take  a  bag  of 
dynamite  into  a  millionaire's  office 
and  threaten  to  blow  him  to  pieces 
if  he  didn't  give  him  a  house  and  lot," 
sneered  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"That's  cowardice,  not  nerve.  If  I 
went  into  a  millionaire's  office  and 
demanded  a  million — or  a  house  and 
lot  even  —  armed  with  a  bag  full 
101 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

of  newspapers,  pretending  it  held 
dynamite,  it  might  be  more  like 
nerve;  but  my  beggar  would  do 
nothing  contrary  to  the  law.  He'd 
simply  be  nervy,  that's  all — cheeky, 
perhaps  you'd  call  it.  For  instance, 
I  believe  that  if  I  were  to  hire  in  the 
elevated  cars  one  of  those  advertising 
spaces  above  the  windows,  and  were 
to  place  in  that  space  a  placard  say 
ing  that  I  was  by  nature  too  lazy  to 
work,  too  fond  of  life  to  starve,  too 
poor  to  live,  and  too  honest  to  steal, 
and  would  be  placed  in  affluence  if 
every  man  and  woman  who  saw  that 
sign  would  send  me  ten  cents  a  week 
in  two-cent  postage-stamps  for  five 
weeks  running,  I  should  receive 
enough  money  to  enable  me  to  live 
at  the  most  expensive  hotel  in  town 
during  that  period.  By  living  at 
that  hotel  and  paying  my  bills  regu 
larly  I  could  get  credit  enough  to  set 
myself  up  in  business,  and  with  cred 
it  there  is  practically  no  limit  to  the 

IO2 


A  Beggar's  Hand-book 

possibilities  of  fortune.  It  is  simply 
honest  nerve  that  counts.  The  beg 
gar  who  asks  you  on  the  street  for 
five  cents  to  keep  his  family  from 
starving  is  rebuffed.  You  don't  be 
lieve  his  story,  and  you  know  that 
five  cents  wouldn't  keep  a  family 
from  starving  very  long.  But  the 
fellow  who  accosts  you  frankly  for  a 
dime  because  he  is  thirsty,  and  hasn't 
had  a  drink  for  two  hours,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  properly  selected  ones 
will  get  a  quarter  for  his  nerve." 

"  You  ought  to  write  a  Manual  for 
Beggars"  said  the  Bibliomaniac.  "I 
have  no  doubt  that  the  Idiot  Publish 
ing  Company  would  publish  it." 

4 'Yes,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "A  sort 
of  beggar's  Don't,  for  instance.  It 
would  be  a  benefit  to  all  men,  as  well 
as  a  boon  to  the  beggars.  That  men 
dicancy  is  a  profession  to-day  there 
is  no  denying,  and  anything  which 
could  make  of  it  a  polite  calling 
would  be  of  inestimable  value." 
s  103 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

"  I  have  had  it  in  mind  for  some 
time,"  said  the  Idiot,  blandly.  "I  in 
tended  to  call  it  Mendicancy  Made 
Easy,  or  the  Beggar's  Don't :  With 
Two  Chapters  on  Etiquette  for 
Tramps.'' 

"The  chief  trouble  with  such  a 
book  I  should  think,"  said  the  Poet, 
"would  be  that  your  beggars  and 
tramps  could  not  afford  to  buy  it." 

"That  wouldn't  interfere  with  its 
circulation,"  returned  the  Idiot.  "  It's 
a  poor  tramp  who  can't  steal.  Every 
suburban  resident  in  creation  would 
buy  a  copy  of  the  book  out  of  sheer 
curiosity.  I'd  get  my  royalties  from 
them;  the  tramps  could  get  the 
books  by  helping  themselves  to  the 
suburbanites'  copies  as  they  do  to 
chickens,  fire-wood,  and  pies  put  out 
to  cool.  As  for  the  beggars,  I'd 
have  it  put  into  their  hands  by  the 
people  they  beg  from.  When  a  man 
comes  up  to  a  wayfarer,  for  instance, 
and  says,  'Excuse  me,  sir,  but  could 
104 


A  Beggar's  Hand-book 

you  spare  a  nickel  to  a  hungry  man?' 
I'd  have  the  wayfarer  say,  'Excuse 
me,  sir,  but  unfortunately  I  have  left 
my  nickels  in  my  other  vest ;  but  here 
is  a  copy  of  the  Idiot's  Mendicancy 
Made  Easy,  or  the  Beggar's  Don't.'  ' 

"And  you  think  the  beggar  would 
read  it,  do  you?"  asked  the  Biblio 
maniac. 

"I  don't  know  whether  he  would 
or  not.  He'd  probably  either  read  it 
or  pawn  it ,"  the  I diot  answered .  "  I n 
either  event  he  would  be  better  off, 
and  I  would  have  got  my  ten  per 
cent,  royalty  on  the  book.  After  the 
Beggars'  Manual  I  should  continue 
my  good  work  if  I  found  the  class  for 
whom  it  was  written  had  benefited 
by  my  first  effort.  I  should  com 
pile  as  my  contribution  to  the 
literature  of  mendicancy  for  the  fol 
lowing  season  ^what  I  should  call 
The  Beggar's  Elite  Directory.  This 
would  enlarge  my  sphere  a  trifle.  It 
would  contain  as  complete  lists  as 
105 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

could  be  obtained  of  persons  who  give 
to  street  beggars,  with  their  addresses, 
so  that  the  beggars,  instead  of  in 
festing  the  streets  at  night  might  go 
to  the  houses  of  these  people  and  col 
lect  their  incomes  in  a  more  business 
like  and  less  undignified  fashion. 
Added  to  this  would  be  two  lists,  one 
for  tramps,  stating  what  families  in  the 
suburbs  kept  dogs,  what  families  gave, 
whether  what  they  gave  was  digesti 
ble  or  not,  rounding  up  with  a  list  of 
those  who  do  not  give,  and  who  have 
telephone  connection  with  the  police 
station.  This  would  enable  them  to 
avoid  dogs  and  rebuffs,  would  save 
the  tramp  the  time  he  expends  on 
futile  efforts  to  find  work  he  doesn't 
want,  and  as  for  the  people  who 
have  to  keep  the  dogs  to  ward  off 
the  tramps,  they,  too,  would  be 
benefited,  because  the  tramps  would 
begin  to  avoid  them,  and  in  a  short 
while  they  would  be  able  to  dispense 
with  the  dogs.  The  other  list  would 
106 


A  Beggar's  Hand-booh 

be  for  organ-grinders,  who  are,  after 
all,  only  beggars  of  a  different  type. 
This  list  would  comprise  the  names 
of  persons  who  are  musical  and  who 
would  rather  pay  a  quarter  than  lis 
ten  to  a  hand-organ.  By  a  judicious 
arrangement  with  these  people,  car 
ried  on  by  correspondence,  the  or 
gan-grinder  would  be  able  to  collect 
a  large  revenue  without  venturing 
out,  except  occasionally  to  play  be 
fore  the  house  of  a  delinquent  sub 
scriber  in  order  to  remind  him  that  he 
had  let  his  contract  expire.  So,  by 
slow  degrees,  we  should  find  beggars 
doing  their  work  privately  and  not 
publicly,  tramps  circulating  only 
among  those  whose  sympathies  they 
have  aroused,  and  organ  -  grinding 
only  a  memory." 

"  The  last,  I  think,  would  not  come 
about,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "For 
there  are  people  who  like  the  music 
of  hand-organs." 

"True— I'm  one  of  'em.  I'd  hire 
107 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

a  hansom  to  follow  a  piano-organ 
about  the  city  if  I  could  afford  it,  but 
as  a  rule  the  hand-organ  lovers  are 
of  the  one-cent  class,"  returned  the 
Idiot.  "  The  quarter  class  are  people 
who  would  rather  not  hear  the  hand- 
organ,  and  it  is  to  them  that  a 
grinder  of  business  capacity  would 
naturally  address  himself.  It  is  far 
pleasanter  to  stay  at  home  and  be 
paid  large  money  for  doing  nothing 
than  to  undertake  a  weary  march 
through  the  city  to  receive  small  sums 
for  doing  something.  That's  human 
nature,  Mr.  Pedagog." 

"  I  presume  it  is,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog ; 
"but  I  don't  think  your  scheme  is. 
Human  nature  works,  but  your  plan 
wouldn't." 

"Well,  of  course,"  said  the  Idiot, 
"you  never  can  tell  about  ideals. 
The  fact  that  an  ideal  is  ideal  is  the 
chief  argument  against  its  amount 
ing  to  much.  But  I  am  confident 
that  if  my  Beggar's  Don't  and  Elite 
108 


A  Beggar's  Hand-booh 

Directory   fail,  my   other   book  will 

go." 

"You  appear  to  have  the  writing 
of  a  library  in  mind,"  sneered  the 
Bibliomaniac. 

"I  have,"  said  the  Idiot.  "If  I 
write  all  the  books  I  have  in  mind, 
the  public  library  will  be  a  small 
affair  beside  mine." 

"And  your  other  book  is  to  be 
what?"  queried  Mr.  Whitechoker. 

"  Plausible  Tales  for  Beggars  to  Tell" 
said  the  Idiot.  "  If  the  beggar  could 
only  tell  an  interesting  story  he'd  be 
surer  of  an  ear  in  which  to  whisper  it. 
The  usual  beggar's  tale  is  common 
place.  There's  no  art  in  it.  There 
are  no  complications  of  absorbing  in 
terest.  There  is  not  a  soul  in  crea 
tion,  I  venture  to  say,  but  would  be 
willing  to  have  a  beggar  stop  right  in 
the  middle  of  his  story.  The  tales  I'd 
write  for  them  would  be  so  interest 
ing  that  the  attention  of  the  wayfarer 
would  be  arrested  at  once.  His  mind 
109 


The  Incentions  of  the  Idiot 

would  be  riveted  on  the  situation  at 
once,  and,  instead  of  hurrying  along 
and  trying  to  leave  the  beggar  behind, 
he  would  stop,  button-hole  him,  and 
ask  him  to  sit  down  on  a  convenient 
doorstep  and  continue.  If  a  beggar 
could  have  such  a  story  to  tell  as 
would  enable  him  in  the  midst  of  one 
of  its  most  exciting  episodes  to 
whisper  hoarsely  into  the  ear  of  the 
man  whose  nickel  he  was  seeking, 
'  The  rest  of  this  interesting  story  I 
will  tell  you  in  Central  Park  at  nine 
o'clock  to-morrow  night,'  in  such  a 
manner  as  would  impel  the  listener 
to  meet  him  in  the  Park  the  follow 
ing  evening,  his  fortune  would  be 
made.  Such  a  book  I  hope  some 
day  to  write." 

"I  have  no  doubt,"  said  Mr. 
Whitechoker,  "that  it  will  be  an  en 
tertaining  addition  to  fiction." 

"  Nor  have  I,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  It 
will  make  the  writers  of  to-day 
green  with  envy,  and,  as  for  the  beg- 
no 


A  Beggar's  Hand-book 

gars,  if  it  is  not  generally  known  that 
it  is  I  and  not  they  who  are  respon 
sible  for  the  work,  the  beggars  will 
shortly  find  themselves  in  demand  as 
writers  of  fiction  for  the  magazines." 

"And  you?"  suggested  the  Poet. 

"I  shall  be  content.  Mere  grati 
tude  will  force  the  beggars  to  send 
me  the  magazine  orders,  and  /'// 
write  their  articles  and  be  glad  of  the 
opportunity,  giving  them  ten  per 
cent,  of  the  profits.  I  know  a  man 
who  makes  fifty  dollars  a  year  at 
magazine  work,  and  one  of  my  am 
bitions  is  to  rival  the  Banker -Poets 
and  Dry  Goods  Essayists  by  achiev 
ing  fame  as  the  Boarding  -  house 
Dickens." 


VIII 
Progressioe  Waffles 

I  AM  afraid,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  in 
a  loud  whisper  to  the  Bibliomaniac, 
''that  the  Idiot  isn't  feeling  well  this 
morning.  He  has  eaten  three  fish 
cakes  and  a  waffle  without  opening 
his  mouth." 

The  Idiot  looked  up,  and,  gazing 
wearily  at  Mr.  Pedagog  for  a  moment, 
shrugged  his  shoulders  and  ejacu 
lated,  "  Tutt !" 

"He's  off,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac. 
"Whenever  he  says  'Tutt!'  you  can 
make  up  your  mind  that  his  vocabu 
lary  is  about  to  be  loosed." 

"  If  my  vocabulary  were  as  warped 
as  some  other  vocabularies  I  might 
mention,"  said  the  Idiot,  helping 

112 


Progressioe  Waffles 

himself  to  another  waffle  modelled 
after  the  six  of  hearts/4  I'd  keep  it  in 
a  cage.  A  man  who  observes  that  I 
have  eaten  three  fish  -  cakes  and  a 
waffle  without  opening  my  mouth 
hasn't  a  very  good  command  of  lan 
guage.  He  simply  states  as  a  fact 
what  is  in  reality  an  impossibility, 
granting  that  I  eat  with  my  mouth, 
which  I  am  told  I  do." 

"You  know  what  I  mean,"  re 
torted  Mr.  Pedagog,  impatiently. 
"  I  am  so  much  in  your  society  that  I 
have  acquired  the  very  bad  habit  of 
speaking  in  the  vernacular.  When  I 
say  you  haven't  opened  your  mouth  I 
do  not  refer  to  the  opening  you  make 
for  the  receipt  of  waffles  and  fish 
cakes,  but  for  those  massive  openings 
which  you  require  for  your  exuberant 
loquacity.  In  other  words,  I  mean 
that  you  haven't  spoken  a  word  for 
at  least  three  minutes,  which  is  natu 
rally  an  indication  to  us  that  you 
aren't  feeling  well.  You  and  talk 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

are  synonymous  as  far  as  we  are 
concerned." 

11 1  have  been  known  to  speak — that 
is  true,"  said  the  Idiot.  "That  I 
am  not  feeling  very  well  this  morn 
ing  is  also  true.  I  have  a  headache." 

"  A  what  ache?"  asked  the  Doctor, 
scornfully. 

"A  very  bad  headache,"  returned 
the  Idiot,  looking  about  him  for  a 
third  waffle. 

"How  singular!"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac.  "Reminds  me  of  a  ktory 
I  heard  of  a  man  who  had  lost  his 
foot.  He'd  had  his  foot  shot  off  at 
Gettysburg,  and  yet  for  years  after 
he  could  feel  the  pangs  of  rheuma 
tism  in  that  foot  from  which  he  had 
previously  suffered." 

"Pardon  me  for  repeating,"  ob 
served  the  Idiot.  "  But,  as  I  have 
already  said,  and  as  I  expect  often 
to  have  to  say  again,  Tutt !  I  can't 
blame  you  for  thinking  that  I  have  no 
head,  however.  I  find  so  little  use 
114 


Progressiue  Waffles 

for  one  here  that  in  most  instances  I 
do  not  obtrude  it  upon  you." 

"I  haven't  noticed  any  lack  of 
head  in  the  Idiot,"  put  in  the  School 
master.  "As  a  rule,  I  can  agree  to 
almost  anything  my  friend  the  Biblio 
maniac  says,  but  in  this  case  I  cannot 
accept  his  views.  You  have  a  head. 
I  have  always  said  you  had  a  head- 
in  fact,  that  is  what  I  complain  about 
chiefly,  it  is  such  a  big  head." 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  Idiot,  ig 
noring  the  shaft.  "  I  shall  never  for 
get  your  kindness  in  coming  to  my 
aid,  though  I  can't  say  that  I  think  I 
needed  it.  Even  with  a  racking 
headache  sustained  by  these  de 
licious  waffles,  I  believe  I  can  handle 
the  Doctor  and  my  bookish  friend 
without  assistance.  I  am  what  the 
mathematicians  would  call  an  arith 
metical  absurdity — I  am  the  one 
that  is  equal  to  the  two  they  repre 
sent.  At  present,  however,  I  prefer 
to  let  them  talk  on.  I  am  too  much 
"5 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

absorbed  in  thought  and  waffles  to 
bandy  words." 

"If  I  had  a  headache,"  said  Mrs. 
Smithers-Pedagog,  without,  it  must 
be  said,  in  any  way  desiring  to  stem 
the  waffle  tide  which  was  slowly  but 
surely  eating  into  the  profits  of  the 
week — "if  I  had  a  headache  I  should 
not  eat  so  many  waffles,  Mr.  Id 
iot." 

"I  suppose  I  ought  not  to,"  re 
plied  the  Idiot,  "but  I  can't  help  it, 
ma'am.  Waffles  are  my  weakness. 
Some  men  take  to  drink,  some  to 
gaming;  I  seek  forgetfulness  of  woe 
in  waffles.  Mr.  Whitechoker,  will 
you  kindly  pass  me  that  steaming 
ten  of  diamonds  that  is  wasting  its 
warmth  upon  the  desert  air  before 
you?" 

Mr.  Whitechoker,  with  a  sigh  which 
indicated  that  he  had  had  his  eye  on 
the  ten  of  diamonds  himself,  did  as 
he  was  requested. 

"Many  thanks,"  said  the  Idiot, 
116 


Progressive  Waffles 

transferring  the  waffle  to  his  plate. 
"Let  me  see — that  is  how  many?" 

"Five,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"Eight,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"Dear  me!"  ejaculated  the  Idiot. 
"Why  can't  you  agree?  I  never  eat 
less  than  twelve  waffles,  and  now 
that  you  have  failed  to  keep  tab  I 
shall  have  to  begin  all  over  again. 
Mary,  bring  me  one  dozen  fresh 
waffles  in  squads  of  four.  This  is  an 
ideal  breakfast,  Mrs.  Smithers-Peda- 

gog." 

"I  am  glad  you  are  pleased,"  said 
the  landlady,  graciously.  "My  one 
aim  is  to  satisfy." 

"You  are  a  better  shot  than  most 
women,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I  wonder 
why  it  is,"  he  added,  "that  waffles 
are  so  generally  modelled  after  play 
ing-cards,  and  also  why,  having  been 
modelled  after  playing-cards,  there  is 
not  a  full  pack?" 

"  Fifty-two  waffles,"  said  Mr.  White- 
choker,  "would  be  too  many." 
117 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

"Fifty-three,  including  the  joker," 
said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"What  do  you  know  about  cards, 
John  ?"  asked  Mrs.  Pedagog,  se 
verely. 

The  Idiot  laughed. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  that  pretty 
little  song  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's, 
Mr.  Poet,  '  Things  are  seldom  what 
they  seem '  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  know  about  play 
ing-cards  ? ' '  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  acridly. 
* '  Mr.  Whitechoker  seems  to  be  aware 
that  a  pack  holds  fifty-two  cards — if 
he,  why  not  I?" 

"I — ah — I  of  course  have  to  ac 
quaint  myself  with  many  vicious 
things  with  which  I  have  very  lit 
tle  sympathy,"  observed  Mr.  White- 
choker,  blandly.  "I  regard  cards  as 
an  abomination." 

"So  do  I,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog— "so 
do  I.  But  even  then  I  know  a  full 
house — I  should  say  a  full  pack  from 

O-f* O O-t* 

Cl          ct         Ci 

118 


Progressiue  Waffles 

11  Bob  -  tail  flush"  suggested  the 
Idiot. 

"  Sir,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  "  I  am  not 
well  up  in  poker  terms." 

''Then  you  ought  to  play,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "The  man  who  doesn't  know 
the  game  has  usually  great  luck. 
But  I  am  sorry,  Mrs.  Pedagog,  that 
you  are  so  strongly  opposed  to  cards, 
for  I  was  going  to  make  a  suggestion 
which  I  think  would  promote  har 
mony  in  our  little  circle  on  waffle 
days.  If  you  regard  cards  as  wholly 
immoral,  of  course  the  suggestion  is 
without  value,  since  it  involves  two 
complete  packs  of  cards— one  card 
board  pack  and  one  waffle  pack." 

"I  don't  object  to  cards  as  cards, 
Mr.  Idiot,"  said  the  landlady.  "  It  is 
the  games  people  play  with  cards  that 
I  object  to.  They  bring  a  great  deal 
of  unnecessary  misery  into  the  world, 
and  for  that  reason  I  think  it  is  better 
to  avoid  them  altogether." 

"That  is  quite  true,"  said  the  Id- 
9  119 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

iot.  "They  do  bring  about  much  un- 
happiness.  I  know  a  young  woman 
who  became  a  victim  of  insomnia 
once  because  in  a  series  of  ten  games 
of  old  maid  she  got  the  odd  card 
seven  times.  Of  course  it  wasn't 
entirely  the  cards'  fault.  Super 
stition  had  something  to  do  with  it. 
In  fact,  I  sometimes  think  the  fault 
lies  with  the  people  who  play,  and 
not  with  the  cards.  I  owe  much  to 
the  game  of  whist.  It  taught  me  to 
control  my  tongue.  I  should  have 
been  a  regular  talk-fiend  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  whist." 

Mr.  Pedagog  looked  unutterable 
things  at  the  Idiot. 

"Are  you  laboring  under  the  delu 
sion  that  you  have  any  control  over 
your  tongue?"  he  asked,  savagely. 

"Most  certainly,"  said  the  Idiot. 

"Well,  I'll  have  to  make  a  note  of 
that,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "I  have  a 
friend  who  is  making  a  collection  of 
hallucinations." 

I2O 


Progressioe  Waffles 

''If  you'll  give  me  his  address,'* 
said  the  Idiot,  "1*11  send  him  thou 
sands.  For  five  dollars  a  dozen  I'll 
invent  hallucinations  for  him  that 
people  ought  to  have  but  haven't." 

"No,"  returned  the  School-master. 
"  In  his  behalf,  however,  I  thank  you. 
He  collects  only  real  hallucinations, 
and  he  finds  there  are  plenty  of 
them  without  retaining  a  profession 
al  lunatic  to  supply  him." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Idiot,  re 
turning  to  his  waffies.  "If  at  any 
time  he  finds  the  supply  running 
short,  I  shall  be  glad  to  renew  my 
offer." 

"You  haven't  unfolded  your  Har 
mony  Promoting  Scheme  for  Waffle 
Days,"  suggested  the  Poet.  "It  has 
aroused  my  interest." 

"Oh,  it  is  simple,"  said  the  Idiot. 
' '  I  have  noticed  that  on  waffle  days 
here  most  of  us  leave  the  table  more  or 
less  dissatisfied.  We  find  ourselves 
plunged  into  acrimonious  discussions, 

121 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

which,  to  my  mind,  arise  entirely  from 
the  waffles.  Mr.  Pedagog  is  a  most 
amiable  gentleman,  and  yet  we  find 
him  this  morning  full  of  acerbity.  On 
the  surface  of  things  I  seem  to  be  the 
cause  of  his  anger,  but  in  reality  it  is 
not  I,  but  the  waffles.  He  has  seen 
me  gradually  absorbing*  them  and  it 
has  irritated  him.  Every  waffle  that 
I  eat  he  might  have  had  if  I  had  not 
been  here.  If  there  had  been  no  one 
here  but  Mr.  Pedagog,  he  would  have 
had  all  the  waffles ;  as  it  is,  his  supply 
is  limited.  This  affects  his  geniality. 
It  makes  him — " 

"  Pardon  me,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 
"  But  you  are  all  wrong.  I  haven't 
thought  of  the  things  at  all." 

"Consciously  to  yourself  you  have 
not, ' '  said  the  Idiot.  * '  Subconsciously, 
however,  you  have.  The  Philosophy 
of  the  Unconscious  teaches  us  that 
unknown  to  ourselves  our  actions  are 
directly  traceable  to  motives  we  wot 
not  of.  The  truth  of  this  is  conclu- 

122 


Progressioe  Waffles 

sively  proven  in  this  case.  Even 
when  I  point  out  to  you  the  facts  in 
the  case  you  deny  their  truth,  thereby 
showing  that  you  are  not  conscious 
of  the  real  underlying  motive  for  your 
irritation.  Now,  why  is  that  irrita 
tion  there?  Because  our  several 
rights  to  the  individual  waffles  that 
are  served  here  are  not  clearly  defined 
at  the  outset.  When  Mary  brings  in 
a  steaming  platter  full  of  these  deli 
cious  creations  of  the  cook,  Mr.  Ped- 
agog  has  quite  as  much  right  to  the 
one  with  the  six  of  hearts  on  it  as 
I  have,  but  I  get  it.  He  does  not. 
Hence  he  is  irritated,  although  he 
does  not  know  it.  So  with  Mr.  White- 
choker.  Five  minutes  ago  he  was 
hastening  through  the  four  of  spades 
in  order  that  he  might  come  into  pos 
session  of  the  ten  of  diamonds  that  lay 
smoking  before  him.  As  he  was  about 
to  put  the  last  spade  in  his  mouth 
I  requested  him  to  hand  me  the  ten 
of  diamonds,  having  myself  gulped 
123 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

down  the  deuce  of  clubs  to  get  ahead 
of  him.  He  couldn't  decline  to  give 
me  that  waffle  because  he  wanted  it 
himself.  He  had  to  give  it  to  me. 
He  was  irritated — though  he  did  not 
know  it.  He  sighed  and  gave  me  the 
waffle." 

"I  did  want  it,"  said  Mr.  White- 
choker.  "  But  I  did  not  know  that  I 
sighed." 

"There  you  are,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"It  is  the  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon 
scious  again.  If  you  are  not  con 
scious  of  so  actual  a  thing  as  a  sigh, 
how  much  the  more  unconscious  must 
you  be  of  something  so  subtle  as 
motive?" 

"And  your  waffle-deck?"  said  the 
Genial  Old  Gentleman  who  occasion 
ally  imbibes.  "  How  will  that  solve 
the  problem  ?  It  seems  to  me  to  com 
plicate  the  problem.  As  it  is,  we 
have  about  thirty  waffles,  each  one  of 
which  is  a  germ  of  irritation  in  the 
breast  of  the  man  who  doesn't  eat 
124 


Progressive  Waffles 

it.  If  you  have  fifty-two  waffles  you 
have  twenty  -  two  more  germs  to  sow 
discord  in  our  midst." 

"You  would  have  but  for  my 
scheme,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I'd  have 
a  pack  of  cards  at  the  table,  and  I'd 
deal  them  out  just  as  you  do  in 
whist.  Each  card  would  represent  the 
corresponding  waffle.  We'd  begin 
breakfast  by  playing  one  hand  after 
the  manner  of  whist.  Each  man 
would  keep  his  tricks,  and  when  the 
waffles  were  served  he  would  receive 
those,  and  those  only,  represented  by 
the  cards  in  the  tricks  he  had  taken. 
If  you  took  a  trick  with  the  king  of 
diamonds  in  it,  you'd  get  the  waffle 
with  the  king  of  diamonds  on  it, 
and  so  on.  Every  man  would  be 
clearly  entitled  through  his  skill 
in  the  game  to  the  waffles  that  he 
ate." 

''Very  good,"  said  Mr.  White- 
choker.  "  But  suppose  you  had  bad 
luck  and  took  no  tricks?" 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

"Then,"  said  the  Idiot,  " you'd 
have  bad  luck  and  get  no  waffles." 

"Tutt!"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

And  that  was  the  sole  criticism  any 
of  the  boarders  had  to  make,  although 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the 
scheme  had  objectionable  features  to 
the  majority  of  them,  for  as  yet  Pro 
gressive  Waffles  has  not  been  played 
at  Mrs.  Smithers-Pedagog's. 


IX 

A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

HOW  is  your  Muse  these  days,  Mr. 
Idiot?"  asked  the  Bibliomani 
ac   one  Sunday  morning   while   the 
mush  was  being  served. 

"Flourishing,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"Just  flourishing — and  no  more." 

"  I  should  think  you'd  be  pleased  if 
she  is  flourishing,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"I'd  rather  she'd  stop  flourishing 
and  do  a  little  writing,"  said  the  Id 
iot.  "She's  a  queer  Muse,  that  one 
of  mine.  She  has  all  the  airs  and 
graces  of  an  ordinary  type- writer  with 
an  unconquerable  aversion  to  work." 

"You  look  upon  your  Muse  as  you 
would  upon  your  type -writer,  eh?" 
said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

127 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  That's  all 
my  Muse  is,  and  she  isn't  even  a  ca 
pable  type  -  writer.  The  general  run 
of  type-writers  make  sense  of  what 
you  write,  but  my  Muse  won't.  You 
may  not  believe  it,  but  out  of  ten  in 
spirations  I  had  last  week  not  one  of 
them  is  fit  for  publication  anywhere 
but  in  a  magazine  or  a  puzzle  column. 
I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with 
her,  but  when  I  sit  down  to  dictate  a 
comic  sonnet  she  turns  it  into  a  seri 
ous  jingle,  and  vice  versa.  We  can't 
seem  to  get  our  moods  to  fit.  When 
I  want  to  be  serious  she's  flippant, 
and  when  I  become  flippant  she's 
serious." 

"  She  must  be  very  serious  most  of 
the  time,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"  She  is,"  said  the  Idiot,  innocently. 
"  But  that's  only  because  I'm  flippant 
most  of  the  time.  I'm  going  to  give 
her  warning.  If  she  doesn't  brace  up 
and  take  more  interest  in  her  work 
I'm  going  to  get  another  Muse,  that's 
128 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

all.  I  can't  afford  to  have  my  income 
cut  down  fifty  per  cent,  just  because 
she  happens  to  be  fickle." 

"  Maybe  she  is  flirting  with  some 
body  else,"  suggested  the  Poet.  "  My 
Muse  does  that  occasionally." 

"I  doubt  it,"  said  the  Idiot.  "I 
haven't  observed  any  other  poet  en 
croaching  upon  my  particular  prov 
ince.  Even  you,  good  as  you  are, 
can't  do  it.  But  in  any  event  I'm 
going  to  have  a  change.  The  day  has 
gone  by  when  a  one  -  muse  poet 
achieves  greatness.  I'm  going  to  em 
ploy  a  half-dozen  and  try  to  corner 
the  poetry  market.  Queer  that  in 
all  these  years  that  men  have  been 
writing  poetry  no  one  has  thought  of 
that.  People  get  up  grain  corners, 
corners  in  railway  stock,  monopolies 
in  gas  and  oil  and  everything  else, 
about,  but  as  yet  no  poet  has  cor 
nered  the  market  in  his  business." 

4 'That's  easily  accounted  for,"  said 
the  Bibliomaniac.  "The  poet  con- 
129 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

trols  only  his  own  work,  and  if  he  has 
any  sense  he  doesn't  want  to  monop 
olize  that." 

"  That  isn't  my  scheme  at  all,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "  You  have  a  monopoly  of 
your  own  work  always  if  you  choose 
to  avail  yourself  of  it,  and,  as  you 
say,  a  man  would  be  crazy  to  do  so. 
What  I'd  like  to  see  established  is  a 
sort  of  Poetic  Clearing-house  Associa 
tion.  Supposing,  for  instance,  that  I 
opened  an  office  in  Wall  Street  —  a 
Bank  for  Poets,  in  which  all  writers 
of  verse  could  deposit  their  rhymes  as 
they  write  them,  and  draw  against 
them  just  as  they  do  in  ordinary 
banks  with  their  money.  It  would 
be  fine.  Take  a  man  like  Swinburne, 
for  instance,  or  our  friend  here.  Our 
poet  could  take  a  sonnet  he  had  writ 
ten,  endorse  it,  and  put  it  in  the  bank. 
He'd  be  credited  with  one  sonnet,  and 
wouldn't  have  to  bother  his  head 
about  it  afterwards.  He  could  draw 
against  it.  If  the  Clearing-house 
130 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

company  could  dispose  of  it  to  a 
magazine  his  draft  would  be  honored 
in  cash  to  its  full  value,  less  discount 
charges,  which  would  include  postage 
and  commissions  to  the  company." 

''And  suppose  the  company  failed 
to  dispose  of  it?"  suggested  the 
Poet. 

"  They'd  do  just  as  ordinary  banks 
do  with  checks  —  stamp  it  '  Not 
Good,' "  said  the  Idiot.  "  That,  how 
ever,  wouldn't  happen  very  often  if  the 
concern  had  an  intelligent  receiving- 
teller  to  detect  counterfeits.  If  the 
receiving-teller  were  a  man  fit  for  the 
position  and  a  poet  brought  in  a 
quatrain  with  five  lines  in  it,  he  could 
detect  it  at  once  and  hand  it  back. 
So  with  comic  poems.  I  might  go 
there  with  a  poem  I  thought  was 
comic,  and  proceed  to  deposit  it  with 
the  usual  deposit  slip.  The  teller 
would  look  at  it  a  second,  scrutinize 
the  humor  carefully,  and  then  if  it 
was  not  what  I  thought  it,  would 


The  IfiDentions  of  the  Idiot 

stamp  it  'Not  Comic'  or  'Counterfeit.' 
It  is  perfectly  simple." 

"Very  simple,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 
"  Though  I  should  have  used  a  syn 
onym  of  simple  to  describe  it.  It's 
idiotic." 

"  That's  what  people  said  of  Co 
lumbus' s  idea  that  he  could  discover 
America,"  said  the  Idiot.  "Every 
thing  that  doesn't  have  dollars  slath 
ered  all  over  it  in  plain  view  is 
idiotic. " 

"  The  word  slathered  is  new  to  me," 
said  the  School-master;  "but  I  fancy 
I  know  what  you  mean." 
.  "The  word  slathered  may  be  new 
to  you,"  said  the  Idiot,  "but  it  is  a 
good  word.  I  have  used  it  with  great 
effect  several  times.  Whenever  any 
one  asks  me  that  foolish  question 
that  is  asked  so  often,  'What  is  the 
good  word?'  I  always  reply  'Slath 
ered,'  and  the  what' s-the-good- word 
fiend  goes  off  hurt  in  his  mind.  He 
doesn't  know  what  I  mean  any  more 
132 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

than  I  do,  but  it  shuts  him  up  com 
pletely,  which  is  just  so  much  gained." 

"  I  must  confess,"  said  the  Poet, 
"  that  I  cannot  myself  see  where  there 
is  any  money  for  your  Rhyme  Clear 
ing-house.  Ordinarily  I  quite  ap 
prove  of  your  schemes,  but  in  this 
instance  I  go  over  to  the  enemy." 

"  I  don't  say  that  it  is  a  gold-mine," 
said  the  Idiot.  "  I  doubt  if  I  had  every 
cent  that  is  paid  for  poetry  in  a  year 
by  everybody  to  everybody  that  my 
income  would  reach  one  hundredth 
part  of  what  I'd  receive  as  a  success 
ful  manufacturer  of  soap;  but  there 
would  be  more  money  in  poetry  than 
there  is  if  by  some  pooling  of  our 
issues  we  could  corner  the  market. 
Suppose  every  writer  of  a  quatrain  in 
America  should  send  his  whole  prod 
uct  to  us.  We  could  say  to  the  mag 
azines,  '  Gentlemen,  quatrains  are  not 
quatraining  as  hard  as  they  were. 
If  you  need  a  four-line  bit  of  gloom 
and  rhyme  to  finish  off  your  thirty - 
133 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

second  page,  our  price  is  twenty-five 
dollars  instead  of  seventy-five  cents, 
as  of  yore.'  So  with  all  other  kinds  of 
verse.  We'd  simply  name  our  figure, 
force  the  editors  to  accept  it,  and  un 
load.  We  might  get  caught  on  the 
last  thirty  or  forty  thousand,  but  our 
profits  on  the  others  would  enable  us 
to  more  than  meet  the  losses." 

"And  would  you  pay  the  author 
the  twenty-five  dollars?"  asked  Mr. 
Whitechoker. 

"  Not  if  we  were  sane,"  replied  the 
Idiot.  "We'd  pay  the  author  two 
dollars  and  fifty  cents,  which  is  one 
dollar  and  seventy-five  cents  more 
than  he  gets  now.  He  couldn't  com 
plain." 

' '  And  those  that  you  couldn't  sell  ? " 
asked  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"We'd  simply  mark  'Not  Good' 
and  return  to  the  author.  That's 
what  happens  to  him  now,  so  no  ob 
jection  could  be  raised  to  that.  But 
there's  still  another  side  to  this 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

matter,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  Publishers 
would  be  quite  as  anxious  to  help  it 
along  as  the  poets.  Dealing  through 
us,  they  would  be  spared  the  necessity 
of  interviewing  poets,  which  I  am  in 
formed  is  always  painful  because  of 
the  necessity  which  publishers  labor 
under  to  give  the  poet  to  under 
stand  that  they  are  in  the  business  for 
profit,  not  for  pleasure  or  mere  love 
of  sinking  money  in  a  magazine.  So 
the  publishers  would  keep  a  standing 
account  of  hard  cash  in  our  bank. 
Say  a  magazine  used  one  hundred 
dollars'  worth  of  verse  in  a  month. 
The  publisher  at  the  beginning  of  the 
year  would  deposit  twelve  hundred 
dollars  with  us,  and  throughout  the 
year  would  draw  out  sonnets,  ballads, 
or  pastels-in-metre  just  as  he  need 
ed  them.  The  checks  would  read 
something  like  this :  '  The  Poets' 
Clearing-house  Association  of  the  City 
of  New  York  will  pay  to  John  Blue- 
pencil,  Editor,  or  Order,  Ten  Sonnets. 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

(Signed)  Blank  Brothers  &  Co.'  Or 
perhaps  we'd  receive  a  notice  from 
a  Southern  publisher  to  this  effect: 
'Have  drawn  on  you  at  sight  for  eight 
quatrains  and  a  triolet.'  Now,  when 
you  consider  how  many  publishers 
there  are  who  would  always  keep  a 
cash  balance  in  the  treasury,  you  be 
gin  to  get  some  notion  as  to  how  we 
could  meet  our  running  expenses  and 
pay  our  quarterly  dividends  to  our 
stockholders  anyhow ;  and  as  for  fut 
ure  dividends,  I  believe  our  loan  de 
partment  would  net  us  a  sufficient 
amount  to  make  the  stock  gilt- 
edged." 

"You  would  have  a  loan  depart 
ment,  eh?"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"That  would  be  popular,"  said  the 
Poet;  "but  there  again  I  dispute  the 
profit.  You  could  find  plenty  of 
poets  who  would  borrow  your  funds, 
but  I  doubt  the  security  of  the  loans." 

"All  of  your  objections  are  based 
on  misconceptions,"  said  the  Idiot. 
136 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

"  The  loan  department  would  not  lend 
money.  It  would  lend  poems  for  a 
consideration  to  those  who  are  short 
and  who  need  them  to  fulfil  their 
obligations." 

"  Who  on  earth  would  want  to  bor 
row  a  poem,  I'd  like  to  know?"  said 
the  Bibliomaniac. 

"  Lovers,  chiefly,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"  Never  having  been  a  poet  yourself, 
sir,  you  have  no  notion  how  far  the 
mere  faculty  of  being  able  to  dash  off 
a  sonnet  to  a  lady's  eyebrow  helps  a 
man  along  in  ultimately  becoming  the 
possessor  of  that  eyebrow,  together 
with  the  rest  of  the  lady.  /  have  seen 
women  won,  sir,  by  a  rondeau.  In 
fact,  I  have  myself  completely  routed 
countless  unpoetic  rivals  by  explod 
ing  in  their  ranks  burning  quatrains 
to  the  fair  objects  of  our  affections. 
With  woman  the  man  who  can  write 
a  hymn  of  thanksgiving  that  he  is 
permitted  to  gaze  into  her  cerulean 
orbs  has  a  great  advantage  over  the 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

wight  who  has  to  tell  her  she  has 
dandy  blue  eyes  in  commonplace 
prose.  The  commonplace-prose  wight 
knows  it,  too,  and  he'd  pay  ten  per 
cent,  of  his  salary  during  courtship 
if  he  could  devise  a  plan  by  means  of 
which  he  could  pass  himself  off  as  a 
poet.  To  meet  this  demand,  our  loan 
department  would  be  established. 
An  unimaginative  lover  could  come 
in  and  describe  the  woman  he. adored ; 
the  loan  clerk  would  fish  out  a  son 
net  to  fit  the  girl,  and  the  lover  could 
borrow  it  for  ten  days,  just  as  brokers 
borrow  stock.  Armed  with  this  he 
could  go  up  to  Harlem,  or  wherever 
else  the  maiden  lived,  and  carry  con 
sternation  into  the  hearts  of  his  ri 
vals  by  spouting  the  sonnet  as  non 
chalantly  as  though  he  had  just 
thought  of  it.  So  it  would  go  on. 
For  the  following  call  he  could  bor 
row  a  ballad  singing  the  glories  of 
her  raven  locks,  likening  them  to  the 
beautiful  night,  or,  if  the  locks  were 
138 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

red  instead  of  black,  to  the  aurora 
borealis." 

"You'd  have  trouble  finding  a 
rhyme  to  borealis,"  said  the  Poet. 

" Tutt !"  said  the  Idiot.  "  What's 
the  matter  with  '  Glory,  Alice/  'Lis 
ten  to  my  story,  Alice/  '  I'm  going 
to  war  so  gory,  Alice/  '  I  fear  you 
are  a  Tory,  Alice  '  (this  for  a  Revolu 
tionary  poem) ,  or  '  Come  rowing  in 
my  dory,  Alice '  ?  There's  no  end  to 
'em." 

"  If  you'll  write  a  rhyming  diction 
ary  I'll  buy  a  copy,"  was  the  Poet's 
sole  comment. 

"That  will  come  later,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "  Once  get  our  clearing-house 
established,  we  can  branch  out  into  a 
general  Poetry  Trust  and  Supply  Com 
pany  that  will  make  millions.  We'll 
make  so  much  money,  by  Jove!"  he 
added,  slapping  the  table  enthusiasti 
cally,  "that  we  can  afford  to  go  into 
the  publishing  business  ourselves  and 
bring  out  volumes  of  verse  for  any- 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

body  and  everybody.  We  can  deal 
in  Fame!  A  man  that  couldn't  write 
his  own  name  so  that  anybody  could 
read  it  could  come  to  us  and  say: 
1  Gentlemen,  I've  got  everything  but 
brains.  I  want  to  be  an  author  and 
'mongst  the  authors  stand.  I  am 
told  it  is  delightful  to  see  one's 
book  in  print.  I  haven't  a  book, 
but  I've  got  a  dollar  or  two,  and  if 
you'll  put  out  a  first-class  book  of 
poems  under  my  name  I'll  pay  all  ex 
penses  and  give  you  a  royalty  of 
twenty  per  cent,  on  every  copy  I 
give  away!'  No  money  in  it?  Bah! 
You  gentlemen  don't  know.  If  you 
say  fortune  would  not  wait  upon  this 
venture  7  say  you  are  the  kind  of  men 
who  would  sell  government  bonds  for 
their  value  as  mere  engravings  if  you 
had  the  chance." 

"You  certainly  do  draw  a  roseate 
picture,"  said  Mr.  Whitechoker. 

"I  do  indeed,"  said  the  Idiot,  "and 
the  paint  is  laid  on  thick." 
140 


A  Clearing-house  for  Poets 

"Well,  I  hope  it  goes,"  said  the 
Poet.  "I'll  make  a  deposit  the  first 
day  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-seven 
ballads,  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  couplets,  eighty-nine  rondeaus, 
and  one  epic  about  ten  yards  in 
length,  all  of  which  I  have  in  my  desk 
at  this  moment." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Idiot,  rising, 
"  With  that  encouragement  from  you 
I  feel  warranted  in  ordering  the  'Not 
Good '  stamp  at  least." 


X 
Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

'  IF  I  were  beginning  life  all  over 
1  again,"  said  the  Idiot,  "  I'd  be 
an  electrician.  It  seems  to  me  that 
of  all  modern  pursuits,  barring  archi 
tecture  perhaps,  electricity  is  the  most 
fascinating." 

"There's  probably  more  money  in 
it  than  there  is  in  Idiocy,  too,  I 
fancy,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac,  dryly. 
"Well,  I  should  think  so,"  assented 
the  Idiot.  "  Idiocy  is  merely  an  in 
tellectual  diversion.  Electricity  is  a 
practical  science.  Idiocy  cannot  be 
said  to  be  anything  more  than  a 
luxury,  while  electricity  has  become 
a  necessity.  I  do  not  even  claim  that 
any  real  lasting  benefit  can  come  to 
142 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

the  world  through  Idiocy,  but  in 
electricity  are  possibilities,  not  yet 
realized,  for  which  the  world  will  be 
distinctly  better  and  happier." 

"It  is  kind  of  you  to  speak  so 
highly  of  electricity,"  said  the  Doc 
tor.  "The  science  may  now  advance, 
knowing  that  you  approve." 

"Approve? "  cried  the  Idiot.  "Ap 
prove  is  not  the  word,  sir.  I  enthuse 
—and  why  should  I  not,  feeling,  as  I 
do,  that  in  the  electrical  current  lies 
the  germ  of  the  Elixir  of  Life!  I 
thoroughly  believe  that  a  bottle  of 
liquefied  electricity  would  make  us  all 
young." 

"Then  don't  take  it!"  said  the 
School-master.  "You  have  suffered 
from  an  aggravated  case  of  youngness 
for  as  long  a  time  as  I  have  known 
you.  Pray  do  nothing  to  intensify 
your  youth." 

"  I  fear  I  shall  be  forced  to  deny 
myself  that  pleasure,  Mr.  Pedagog," 
returned  the  Idiot,  mildly,  "for  the 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

unhappy  reason  that  as  yet  the  for 
mula  for  the  Electrical  Elixir  has  not 
been  discovered;  that  it  will  be  dis 
covered  before  I  die  I  hope  and  pray, 
because,  unlike  the  man  in  the  hymn, 
I  would  live  always.  I'd  like  to  be 
an  immortal." 

"  An  immortal  Idiot !  Think  of  it !" 
said  the  Doctor. 

"I  didn't  expect  much  sympathy 
from  you,  Dr.  Capsule,"  said  the  Idiot. 
"  The  man  with  car-horses  to  sell  does 
not  dote  upon  the  trolley-car." 

"  The  application  of  the  allegory 
is  not  entirely  apparent,"  said  the 
Doctor. 

"  No?"  said  the  Idiot.  "  I  am  sur 
prised.  I  thought  you  intellectuals 
absorbed  ideas  more  quickly.  To 
deal  in  plain  terms,  since  it  appears  to 
be  necessary,  a  plan  which  involves 
the  indefinite  extension  of  mortal 
life  and  the  elimination  of  bodily  ills 
is  not  likely  to  receive  the  hearty  en 
dorsement  of  the  medical  profession. 
144 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

If  a  man  could  come  home  on  a 
stormy  night  and  offset  the  deleteri 
ous  effects  of  wet  feet  by  swallowing 
an  electric  pill,  one  containing  two 
volts,  like  a  two-grain  quinine  pill,  for 
instance,  with  greater  certainty  than 
one  feels  in  taking  quinine,  your  pro 
fession  would  have  to  put  up  the 
shutters  and  go  into  some  such  busi 
ness  as  writing  articles  on  *  Measles 
as  It  Used  to  Be,'  or  'Disorders  of 
the  Ante-Electrical  Period. '  The  fine 
part  of  it  all  is  that  we  should  not 
have  to  rely  for  our  medicines  upon 
the  state  of  the  arsenic  market,  or  the 
quinine  supply,  or  the  squill  product 
of  the  year.  Electric  sparks  can  be 
made  without  number  whether  the 
sun  shines  or  not.  The  failure  of  the 
Peruvian  Bark  Crop,  or  the  destruc 
tion  by  an  early  frost  of  the  Castor  Oil 
Wells,  would  cease  to  be  a  hideous 
possibility  to  delicate  natures.  They 
could  all  fail  for  all  mankind  need 
fear,  for  electricity  can  be  generated 
MS 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

when  and  wherever  one  has  need  of  it. 
If  your  electric  pills  were  used  up,  and 
the  chemist  too  far  away  from  your 
house  for  you  to  get  the  supply  re 
plenished  at  the  moment,  you  could 
put  on  your  slippers  and  by  walk 
ing  up  and  down  your  carpeted  floor 
for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  generate 
enough  electricity  to  see  you  through. 
Of  course  you'd  have  to  have  a  pair 
of  dynamic -storage-reservoir  slippers 
to  catch  the  sparks  as  they  flew,  but 
I  fancy  they'd  be  less  costly  in  the 
long  run  than  the  medicines  we  have 
to-day." 

"Why  have  wet  feet  at  all  if  elec 
tricity  is  to  be  so  all-powerful?"  sug 
gested  Mr.  Whitechoker.  "Why  not 
devise  an  electrical  foot  -  protector 
and  ward  off  all  possibility  of  damp, 
cold  feet?" 

"You  couldn't  do  that  with  men 

and  women  constituted  as  they  are," 

said  the  Idiot.   "Your  foot-protector 

would   no   doubt  be   a  good   thing, 

146 


Some  Electrical   Suggestions 

but  so  are  rubber  overshoes.  Noth 
ing  will  ever  be  patented  to  com 
pel  a  man  to  keep  his  feet  dry,  and 
he  won't  do  it  except  under  compul 
sion,  but  once  having  his  feet  wet  he 
will  seek  the  remedy.  It's  the  Elixir 
of  Life  that  I  bank  on  most,  however. 
I  don't  believe  there  is  one  among 
us,  excepting  Mrs.  Pedagog,  to  whom 
twenty-five  was  not  the  most  de 
lightful  period  of  existence.  To  Mrs. 
Pedagog,  as  to  all  women,  eighteen 
is  the  limit.  But  men  at  twenty-five 
and  women  at  eighteen  know  so 
much,  enjoy  so  much,  regard  them 
selves  so  highly!  There  is  nothing 
blase  about  them  then.  Disillusion — 
which  I  think  ought  to  be  called  dis 
solution —  comes  later.  At  thirty  a 
man  discovers  that  the  things  he  knew 
at  twenty-five  aren't  so ;  and  as  for  a 
woman  at  twenty-five,  if  so  be  she  is 
unmarried,  her  life  is  empty,  and  if 
so  be  she  is  married,  she  has  cares  in 
the  shape  of  children  and  a  husband, 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

who  as  a  theory  was  a  poet,  but  who 
as  a  reality  is  a  mere  business  ma 
chine  who  is  oftentimes  no  fonder 
of  staying  at  home  than  he  was  be 
fore  he  was  married  and  went  out  to 
see  her  every  night." 

"What  a  wise  little  pessimist  he 
is!"  said  Mr.  Pedagog  to  the  Doctor. 

"Very.  But  I  fail  to  comprehend 
why  he  branches  off  into  Pessimism 
when  Electricity  was  his  text,"  said 
the  Doctor. 

"  Because  he's  the  Id—  "  began  the 
Bibliomaniac,  but  the  Idiot  inter 
rupted  him. 

"  Don't  jump  fences,  gentlemen, 
before  you  know  whether  they  are 
made  of  barbed  wire  or  not.  I'm 
coming  to  the  points  you  are  bringing 
up,  and  if  you  are  not  careful  they  may 
puncture  you,"  he  said.  "I  am  not 
in  any  sense  a  pessimist.  Quite  the 
contrary.  I  am  an  optimist.  I'm  not 
old  enough  or  cross-grained  enough 
as  yet  to  be  a  pessimist,  and  it's 
148 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

because  I  don't  want  to  be  a  pessi 
mist  that  I  want  this  Elixir  of  Elec 
tricity  to  hurry  up  and  have  itself 
patented.  If  men  when  they  reached 
the  age  of  twenty  -  five,  and  women 
at  eighteen,  would  begin  to  take  this 
they  might  live  to  be  a  thousand  and 
yet  retain  all  the  spirit  and  feelings 
of  twenty-five  and  eighteen.  That's 
the  connection,  Dr.  Capsule.  If  I 
could  be  twenty-five  all  my  life  I'd 
be  as  happy  as  a  bird — and  if  I  were 
the  Poet  here  I'd  immortalize  that 
idea  in  verse — 

"A  man's  the  biggest  thing  alive 
When  he  has  got  to  twenty-five; 
And  as  for  woman,  she's  a  queen 
Whose  summers  number  just  eighteen." 

"That's  a  good  idea,"  returned  the 
Poet.  "  I'll  make  a  note  of  that,  and 
if  I  sell  it  I'll  give  you  a  commission." 

"  No,  don't  do  that,"  said  the  Idiot, 
slyly.     "I   shall  be  satisfied  to  see 
your  name  in  print." 
149 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

The  Poet  having  accepted  this 
salty  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  in 
tended,  the  Idiot  resumed: 

"  But  of  course  the  Elixir  and  the 
Electrical  Pills  are  as  yet  all  in  the  air. 
We  haven't  even  taken  a  step  in  that 
direction.  Mr.  Edison  and  other  wiz 
ards  have  been  too  much  occupied 
with  electric  lights  and  telephones 
and  phonographs  and  transatlantic 
notions  to  pay  any  attention  to 
schemes  to  prolong  life  and  keep 
us,  despite  our  years,  perpetually 
young." 

"  I  fancy  they  are  likely  to  continue 
to  do  so,"  said  the  Doctor.  "What 
ever  motive  you  may  attribute  to  me 
for  pooh-poohing  your  notions,  I  do 
so.  No  sane  person  wants  to  live 
forever,  and  if  it  were  possible  that 
all  men  might  live  forever,  you'd 
soon  find  the  world  so  crowded  that 
the  slighter  actors  in  the  human  com 
edy  would  be  shoved  off  the  stage. 
There  are  enough  people  in  the  world 
150 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

now,  without  man's  adding  all  fut 
ure  generations  to  their  number  and 
making  death  an  impossibility." 

1  'That's  all  nonsense,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "My  Elixir  wouldn't  make 
death  an  impossibility.  Any  man 
who  thought  he'd  had  enough  at  the 
end  of  a  thousand  years  could  stop 
taking  the  Elixir  and  shuffle  off  the 
mortal  coil.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  not 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  people 
in  the  world  would  have  any  faith  in 
the  Elixir  at  all.  I  know  people  to 
day  who  do  not  take  advantage  of 
the  many  patent  remedies  that  are 
within  their  reach,  preferring  the  mus 
tard-plaster  and  catnip-tea  of  their 
forefathers.  There's  where  human 
nature  works  again.  I  believe  that 
if  I  were  myself  the  discoverer  of  the 
formula  for  my  mixture,  and  for  an 
advertisement  secured  a  letter  from  a 
man  saying,  'I  was  dying  of  old  age, 
having  reached  the  advanced  period 
of  ninety-seven ;  I  took  two  bottles  of 

ii  151 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

your  Electrical  Elixir  and  am  now 
celebrating  my  twenty -fifth  birth 
day  again/  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of 
the  people  who  read  it  would  laugh 
and  think  it  had  strayed  out  of  the 
funny  column.  People  lack  confi 
dence  in  their  fellow-men — that's  all; 
but  if  they  were  twenty -five  and 
eighteen  that  would  all  be  changed. 
We  are  very  trustful  at  twenty-five 
and  eighteen,  which  is  one  of  the 
things  I  like  about  those  respective 
ages.  When  I  was  twenty-five  I  be 
lieved  in  everybody,  including  my 
self.  Now  —  well,  I'm  older.  But 
enough  of  schemes,  which  I  must  ad 
mit  are  somewhat  visionary — as  the 
telephone  would  have  seemed  one 
hundred  years  ago.  Let  us  come 
down  to  realities  in  electricity.  I 
can't  see  why  more  is  not  made  of 
the  phonograph  for  the  benefit  of  the 
public.  Take  a  man  like  Chauncey 
M.  De  Choate.  He  goes  here  and  he 
goes  there  to  make  speeches,  when  I've 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

no  doubt  he'd  much  prefer  to  stay  at 
home  cutting  coupons  off  his  bonds. 
Why  can't  the  phonograph  voice  do 
his  duty?  Instead  of  making  the 
same  speech  over  and  over  again, 
why  can't  some  electrician  so  im 
prove  the  phonograph  that  De  Choate 
can  say  what  he  has  to  say  through 
a  funnel,  have  it  impressed  on  a 
cylinder,  duplicated  and  redupli 
cated  and  scattered  broadcast  over 
the  world?  If  Mr.  Edison  could  im 
part  what  poets  call  stentorian  tones 
to  the  phonograph,  he'd  be  doing  a 
great  and  noble  work.  Again,  for 
smaller  things,  like  a  dance,  Why 
can't  the  phonograph  be  made  useful 
at  a  ball?  I  attended  one  the  other 
night,  and  when  I  wanted  to  dance 
the  two-step  the  band  played  the 
polka ;  if  I  wished  the  polka  it  played 
a  waltz.  Some  men  can  only  dance 
the  two-step  —  they  don't  know  the 
waltz,  the  polka,  or  the  schottische. 
Now  why  can't  the  phonograph  come 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

to  the  rescue?  In  almost  any  hotel 
in  New  York  you  can  drop  a  nickel 
in  a  slot  and  hear  Sousa's  band  on 
the  phonograph.  Why  not  extend 
the  principle  and  have  a  phonograph 
for  men  who  can  dance  nothing  but 
the  two-step,  charged  with '  The  Wash 
ington  Post  March,'  and  supplied  with 
four  tubes  with  receivers  to  put  in  the 
ears  of  the  listeners?  Make  it  small 
enough  for  a  man  to  carry  in  his 
pocket;  then  at  a  ball  he  could  go  up 
to  a  young  lady,  ask  her  to  dance, 
put  two  of  the  receivers  in  her  ears, 
two  in  his,  and  trip  the  light  fan 
tastic  toe  utterly  independently  of 
what  other  people  were  dancing.  It's 
possible.  Mr.  Edison  could  do  it  in 
five  minutes,  and  every  one  would  be 
satisfied.  It  might  be  rather  droll  to 
see  two  people  dancing  the  two-step 
while  eight  others  were  fastened  on 
to  a  lanciers  phonograph,  and  a  doz 
en  or  more  other  couples  were  danc 
ing  respectively  the  waltz,  schot- 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

tische,  and  Virginia  reel,  but  we'd 
soon  get  used  to  that,  and  no  man 
need  become  a  wall-flower  because  he 
couldn't  dance  the  dance  that  hap 
pened  to  be  on.  Furthermore,  you'd 
be  able  to  do  away  with  the  musi 
cians,  who  always  cast  a  pall  over 
dances  because  of  their  superiority 
to  the  rest  of  the  world  in  general  and 
the  dancers  in  particular." 

"  How  about  your  couple  that  pre 
fer  to  sit  out  the  dance  on  the 
stairs?"  said  the  Poet,  who,  in  com 
mon  with  the  Idiot,  knew  several 
things  about  dances  that  Messrs.  Ped- 
agog  and  Whitechoker  did  not. 

"  It  would  be  particularly  attractive 
to  them,"  said  the  Idiot.  "They 
could  sit  on  the  stairs  and  wax  sen 
timental  over  any  dreamy  air  the 
man  happened  to  have  in  his  vest- 
pocket.  He  could  arrange  all  that 
beforehand  —  find  out  what  song 
she  thought  divinest,  and  go  loaded 
accordingly.  And  as  for  the  things 


The  Inoentions  o£  the  Idiot 

that  usually  happen  on  stairs  at 
dances,  as  well  as  in  conservatories  at 
balls,  with  the  aid  of  a  phonograph 
a  man  could  propose  to  a  girl  in  the 
presence  of  a  thousand  people,  and 
nobody  but  the  maiden  herself  would 
be  the  wiser.  I  tell  you,  gentlemen," 
the  Idiot  added,  enthusiastically,  as 
he  rose  to  depart,  "if  the  phono 
graph  people  only  knew  their  power 
they'd  do  great  things.  The  patent 
vest-pocket  phonograph  for  music 
at  balls  and  proposals  for  bashful  men 
alone  would  make  their  fortunes  if 
they  only  could  see  it.  I  almost  wish 
I  were  an  electrician  and  not  an 
Idiot." 

With  which  he  left  the  room,  and  Mr. 
Pedagog  whispered  to  Mrs.  Pedagog 
that  while  he  considered  the  Idiot 
very  much  of  an  idiot,  there  was  no 
denying  that  at  times  he  did  get  hold 
of  ideas  that  were  not  wholly  bad. 

"That's  true,"  said  the  good  land 
lady.  "  I  think  if  you  had  proposed 
156 


Some  Electrical  Suggestions 

to  me  through  a  phonograph  I  should 
not  have  had  to  guess  at  what  you 
meant  and  lead  you  on  to  express 
yourself  more  clearly.  I  didn't  want 
to  say  yes  until  I  was  fully  convinced 
that  you  meant  what  you  didn't 
seem  able  to  say." 


XI 
Concerning  Children 

THE  Poet  had  been  away  for 
a  week,  and  on  his  return  to  his 
accustomed  post  at  the  breakfast- 
table  seemed  but  a  shadow  of  his 
former  self.  His  eyes  were  heavy  and 
his  long  locks  appeared  straggly 
enough  for  a  man  of  far  more  extend 
ed  reputation  as  a  singer  of  melodi 
ous  verse. 

''To  judge  from  your  appearance, 
Mr.  Poet,"  said  the  Idiot,  after  wel 
coming  his  friend,  "you've  had  a 
lively  vacation.  You  certainly  do 
not  look  as  if  you  had  devoted  much 
of  it  to  sleep. " 

"  I  haven't,"  said  the  Poet,  wearily, 
"I  haven't  averaged  more  than  two 

158 


Concerning  Children 

hours  of  sleep  daily  since  I  went 
away." 

"I  thought  you  told  me  you  were 
going  off  into  the  country  for  a  rest?" 
observed  the  Idiot. 

"I  did — and  this  is  what  comes  of 
it,"  returned  the  Poet.  "  I  went  to 
visit  my  sister  up  in  Saratoga  County. 
She  has  seven  children." 

"  Aha !"  smiled  the  Idiot.  "  That's 
it,  is  it — well,  I  can  sympathize  with 
you.  I've  had  experience  with  young 
sters  myself.  I  love  'em,  but  I  like 
to  take  'em  on  the  instalment  plan- 
very  little  at  a  time.  I  have  a  small 
cousin  with  a  capacity  for  play  and 
impudence  that  can't  be  equalled. 
His  mother  wrote  me  once  and  asked 
if  I  thought  Hagenbeck,  the  wild- 
animal  tamer,  could  be  induced  to 
take  him  in  hand." 

"That's  the  kind,"  put  in  the  Poet, 
his  face  lighting  up  a  little  upon  dis 
covering  that  there  was  some  one  at 
least  at  the  board  who  could  sympa- 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

thize  with  him.  "My  sister's  seven 
are  all  of  the  wild-animal  variety.  I'd 
rather  fall  in  with  seven  tigers  than 
put  in  another  week  with  my  beloved 
nephews  and  nieces." 

44 Did  they  play  Alp  with  you?" 
the  Idiot  asked,  with  a  grin. 

"  Alp  ?"  said  the  Poet.  ' '  No— not 
that  I  know  of.  They  may  have, 
however.  I  was  hardly  conscious  of 
what  they  were  doing  the  last  two 
days  of  my  stay  there.  They  simply 
overpowered  me,  and  I  gave  in  and 
became  a  toy  for  the  time." 

"It  isn't  much  fun  being  a  toy," 
said  the  Idiot.  "I  think  I'd  rather 
play  Alp." 

"What  on  earth  is  Alp?"  asked 
Mr.  Redagog,  his  curiosity  aroused. 
"  I've  heard  enough  absurd  names  for 
games  in  the  last  five  years,  but  I 
must  say,  for  pure  idiocy  and  lack  of 
suggestiveness,  the  name  of  Alp  sur 
passes  all." 

"That's  as  it  should  be,"  said  the 
160 


Concerning  Children 

Idiot.  "My  small  cousin  invented 
Alp,  and  anything  that  boy  does  is 
apt  to  surpass  all.  He  takes  after 
me  in  some  things.  But  Alp,  while 
it  may  seem  to  lack  suggestiveness 
as  a  name,  is  really  just  the  name  for 
the  game.  It's  very  simple.  It  is 
played  by  one  Alp  and  as  many 
chamois  as  desire  to  take  a  hand. 
As  a  rule  the  man  plays  the  Alp  and 
the  children  are  the  chamois.  The 
man  gets  down  on  his  hands  and 
knees,  puts  his  head  on  the  floor,  and 
has  a  white  rug  put  on  his  back,  the 
idea  being  that  he  is  an  Alp  and 
the  rug  represents  its  snow -clad 
top." 

"And  the  chamois?"  asked  Mr. 
Whitechoker. 

"The  chamois  climbs  the  Alp  and 
jumps  about  on  the  top  of  it,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "  My  experience,  based 
upon  two  hours  a  day  of  it  for  ten 
consecutive  days,  is  that  it's  fun  for 
the  chamois  but  rough  on  the  Alp; 
161 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

and  I  got  so  after  a  while  that  I 
really  preferred  business  to  pleasure 
and  gave  up  playing  Alp  to  return  to 
work  before  my  vacation  was  half 


over." 


"  How  do  you  score  in  this  game 
of  Alp?"  said  Mr.  Pedagog,  smiling 
broadly  as  he  thought  of  there  being 
an  embryo  idiot  somewhere  who  could 
discomfit  the  one  fate  had  thrown 
across  his  path. 

"I  never  had  the  strength  to  in 
quire,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  But  my  im 
pression  is  that  the  game  is  to  see 
which  has  the  greater  endurance,  the 
chamois  or  the  Alp.  The  one  that 
gets  tired  of  playing  first  loses.  I 
always  lost.  My  small  cousin  is  a 
storehouse  of  nervous  energy.  I  be 
lieve  he  could  play  choo-choo  cars 
with  a  real  engine  and  last  longer 
than  the  engine — which  being  the 
case,  I  couldn't  hope  to  hold  out 
against  him." 

"  My  nephews  didn't  play  Alp," 
162 


Concerning  Children 

said  the  Poet.  "  I  believe  Alp  would 
have  been  a  positive  relief  to  me. 
They  made  me  tell  them  stories  and 
poems  from  morning  until  night,  and 
all  night  too,  for  one  of  them  shared 
his  room  with  me,  and  the  worst  of  it 
all  was  that  they  all  had  to  be  new 
stories  and  new  poems,  so  I  was  kept 
composing  from  one  week's  end  to  the 
other." 

"Why  weren't  you  firm  with  them 
and  say  you  wouldn't,  and  let  that 
end  it?"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"Ha  — ha!"  laughed  the  Idiot. 
"That's  fine,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Poet?  It's 
very  evident,  Mr.  Pedagog,  that 
you're  not  acquainted  with  children. 
Now,  my  small  cousin  can  make  the 
same  appeal  over  and  over  again  in 
a  hundred  and  fifty  different  ways. 
You  may  have  the  courage  to  say  no 
a  hundred  and  forty-nine  times,  but  I 
have  yet  to  meet  the  man  who  could 
make  his  no  good  with  a  boy  of  real 
persistent  spirit.  I  can't  do  it.  I've 
163 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

tried,  but  I've  had  to  give  in  sooner 
or  later." 

"  Same  way  with  me,  multiplied  by 
seven,"  said  the  Poet,  with  difficulty 
repressing  a  yawn.  "I  tried  the  no 
business  on  the  morning  of  the  third 
day,  and  gave  it  up  as  a  hopeless 
case  before  the  clock  struck  twelve." 

"  I'd  teach  'em,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog. 

"You'd  have  to  learn  'em  first," 
retorted  the  Idiot.  "You  can't  do 
anything  with  children  unless  you 
understand  them.  You've  got  to  re 
member  several  things  when  you 
have  small  boys  to  deal  with.  In 
the  first  place,  they  are  a  great  deal 
more  alert  than  you  are.  They  are  a 
great  deal  more  energetic ;  they  know 
what  they  want,  and  in  getting  it 
they  haven't  any  dignity  to  restrain 
them,  wherein  they  have  a  distinct 
advantage  over  you.  Worst  of  all, 
down  in  your  secret  heart  you  want 
to  laugh,  even  when  they  most  affront 
you." 

164 


Concerning  Children 

"I  don't,"  said  Mr.  Pedagog, 
shortly. 

"And  why?  Because  you  don't 
know  them,  cannot  sympathize  with 
them,  and  look  upon  them  as  evils  to 
be  tolerated  rather  than  little  minds 
to  be  cultivated.  Hard  a  time  as  I 
have  had  as  an  Alp,  I'd  feel  as  if  a 
great  hole  had  been  punched  in  my 
life  if  anything  should  deprive  me  of 
my  cousin  Sammie.  He  knows  it 
and  I  know  it,  and  that  is  why  we  are 
chums,"  said  the  Idiot.  "What  I 
like  about  Sammie  is  that  he  believes 
in  me,"  he  added,  a  little  wistfully. 
"I  wouldn't  mind  doing  that  myself 
-if  I  could." 

"You  might  think  differently  if 
you  suffered  from  seven  Sammies  the 
way  the  Poet  does,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac. 

"  There  couldn't  be  seven  Sam 
mies,"  said  the  Idiot.  "Sammie  is 
unique — to  me.  But  I  am  not  at  all 
narrow  in  this  matter.  I  can  very  well 

'65 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

imagine  how  Sammie  could  be  very  dis 
agreeable  to  some  people.  I  shouldn't 
care  much  for  Alp,  I  suppose,  if 
when  night  came  on  Sammie  didn't 
climb  up  on  my  lap  and  tell  me  he 
thought  I  was  the  greatest  man  that 
ever  lived  next  to  his  mother  and 
father.  That's  the  thing,  Mr.  Peda- 
gog,  that  makes  Alp  tolerable  — 
it's  the  sugar  sauce  to  the  batter 
pudding.  There's  a  good  deal  of 
plain  batter  in  the  pudding,  but 
with  the  sauce  generously  mixed  in 
you  don't  mind  it  so  much.  That 
boy  would  be  willing  to  go  to  sleep 
on  a  railway  track  if  I  told  him  I'd 
stand  between  him  and  the  express 
train.  If  I  told  him  I  could  hammer 
down  Gibraltar  with  putty  he'd 
believe  it,  and  bring  me  his  putty- 
blower  to  help  along  in  the  great 
work.  That's  why  I  think  a  man's 
so  much  better  off  if  he  is  a  father. 
Somebody  has  fixed  a  standard  for 
him  which,  while  he  may  know  he 
166 


Concerning  Children 

can't  live  up  to  it,  he'll  try  to  live  up 
to,  and  by  aiming  high  he  won't  be 
so  apt  to  hit  low  as  he  otherwise 
might.  As  Sammie's  father  once 
said  to  me:  '  By  Jove,  Idiot,'  he  said, 
'if  men  could  only  be  what  their 
children  think  them!"1 

"Nevertheless  they  should  be  gov 
erned,  curbed,  brought  up!"  said  the 
Bibliomaniac. 

"They  should,  indeed,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "And  in  such  a  fashion  that 
when  they  are  governed,  curbed,  and 
brought  up  they  do  not  realize  that 
they  have  been  governed,  curbed, 
and  brought  up.  The  man  who  plays 
the  tyrant  with  his  children  isn't  the 
man  for  me.  Give  me  the  man  who, 
like  my  father,  is  his  son's  intimate, 
personal  friend,  his  confidant,  his 
chum.  It  may  have  worked  badly 
in  my  case.  I  don't  think  it  has — in 
any  event,  if  I  were  ever  the  father  of 
a  boy  I'd  try  to  make  him  feel  that  I 
was  not  a  despot  in  whose  hands  he 

12  167 


The  Inoentions  of  the  Idiot 

was  powerless,  but  a  mainstay  to  fall 
back  on  when  things  seemed  to  be 
going  wrong — fountain-head  of  good 
advice,  a  sympathizer  —  in  short,  a 
chum." 

"You  certainly  draw  a  pleasant 
picture,"  said  Mr.  Whitechoker, 
kindly. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  It's 
not  original  with  me.  My  father  drew 
it.  But  despite  my  personal  regard 
for  Sammie,  I  do  think  something 
ought  to  be  done  to  alleviate  the  suf 
ferings  of  the  parent.  Take  the  moth 
er  of  a  boy  like  Sammie,  for  instance. 
She  has  him  all  day  and  generally 
all  night.  Sammie' s  father  goes  to 
business  at  eight  o'clock  and  returns 
at  six,  thinking  he  has  worked  hard, 
and  wonders  why  it  is  that  Sammie' s 
mother  looks  so  confoundedly  tired. 
It  makes  him  slightly  irritable.  She 
has  been  at  home  taking  things  easy 
all  day.  He  has  been  in  town  work 
ing  like  a  dog.  What  right  has  she 
168 


Concerning  Children 

to  be  tired?  He  doesn't  realize  that 
she  has  had  to  entertain  Sammie  at 
those  hours  of  the  day  when  Sammie 
is  in  his  best  form.  She  has  found 
him  trying  to  turn  somersaults  at 
the  top  of  the  back  stairs;  she  has 
patiently  borne  his  musical  efforts  on 
the  piano,  upon  which  he  practises 
daily  for  a  few  minutes,  generally 
with  a  hammer  or  a  stick,  or  some 
thing  else  equally  well  calculated  to 
beautify  the  keys;  she  has  had  to 
interfere  in  Sammie' s  well  -  meant 
efforts  to  instruct  his  small  brother 
in  the  art  of  being  an  Indian  who  can 
whoop  and  scalp  all  in  the  same 
breath,  thereby  incurring  for  the  mo 
ment  Sammie' s  undying  hatred;  she 
has  heard  Sammie  using  language 
which  an  inconsiderate  hired  man 
has  not  scrupled  to  use  in  Sammie' s 
presence;  she  has,  with  terror  in  her 
soul,  watched  him  at  play  with  a  knife 
which  some  friend  of  the  family  who 
admires  Sammie  had  given  him,  and 
169 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

has  again  incurred  his  enmity  by 
finally,  to  avoid  nervous  prostration, 
taken  that  treasure  from  him.  In 
short,  she  has  passed  a  day  of  real 
tragedy.  Sammie  is  farce  to  me, 
comedy  to  his  father,  and  tragedy 
to  his  mother.  Cannot  something  be 
done  for  her?  Is  there  no  way  by 
means  of  which  Sammie  can  be  en 
tertained  during  the  day,  for  enter 
tained  he  must  be,  that  does  not  ut 
terly  destroy  the  nervous  system  of 
his  mother?  Can't  some  inventive 
genius  who  has  studied  the  small  boy, 
who  knows  the  little  ins  and  outs  of 
his  nature,  and  who,  above  all,  sym 
pathizes  with  those  ins  and  outs,  put 
his  mind  on  the  life  of  the  woman  of 
domestic  inclination,  and  do  some 
thing  to  make  her  life  less  of  a  burden 
and  more  of  a  joy?" 

"You  are  the  man  to  do  it,"  said 
the     Bibliomaniac.     "An    inventive 
genius  such  as  you  are  ought  to  be 
able  to  solve  the  problem." 
170 


Concerning  Children 

"  Perhaps  he  ought  to  be,"  said  the 
Idiot;  ''but  we  are  not  all  what  we 
ought  to  be,  I  among  the  number. 
Almost  anything  seems  possible  to 
me  until  I  think  of  the  mother  at 
home  all  day  with  a  dear,  sweet, 
bright,  energetic  boy  like  Sammie. 
Then,  I  confess,  I  am  utterly  at  a 
loss  to  know  what  to  do." 

And  then,  as  no'ne  of  the  boarders 
had  any  solution  of  the  problem  to 
suggest,  I  presume  there  was  none 
among  them  who  knew  "  How  To  Be 
Tranquil  Though  A  Mother." 

Perhaps  when  women  take  up  in 
vention  matters  will  seem  more  hope 
ful. 


XII 
Drcamaline 

WELL,  Mr.  Idiot,"  said  Mr.  Ped- 
agog,  as  the  guests  gathered 
about  the  table,  "  how  goes  the  noble 
art  of  invention  with  you?  You've 
been  at  it  for  some  time  now.  Do  you 
find  that  you  have  succeeded  in  your 
self-imposed  mission  and  made  the 
condition  of  the  civilized  less  un 
bearable?" 

"Frankly,  Mr.  Pedagog,  I  have 
failed,"  said  the  Idiot,  sadly.  "  Failed 
egregiously.  I  cannot  find  that  of  all 
the  many  schemes  I  have  evolved  for 
the  benefit  of  the  human  race  any 
single  one  has  been  adopted  by  those 
who  would  be  benefited.  Where 
fore,  with  the  exception  of  Dreama- 
172 


Dreamaline 

line,  which  I  have  not  yet  developed 
to  my  satisfaction,  I  shall  do  no  more 
inventing.  What  is  the  use?  Even 
you,  gentlemen,  here  have  tacitly  de 
clined  to  accept  my  plan  for  the  elimi 
nation  of  irritation  on  Waffle  Days,  a 
plan  at  once  simple,  picturesque,  and 
efficacious.  With  such  discourage 
ment  at  home,  what  hope  have  I  for 
better  fortune  abroad?" 

"It  is  dreadful  to  be  an  unappre 
ciated  genius ! "  said  the  Bibliomaniac, 
gruffly.  "It's  better  to  be  a  plain 
lunatic.  A  plain  lunatic  is  at  least 
free  from  the  consciousness  of  fail 
ure." 

"Nevertheless,  I'd  rather  be  my 
self  than  any  one  else  at  this  board," 
rejoined  the  Idiot.  "Unappreciated 
though  I  be,  I  am  at  least  happy. 
Consciousness  of  failure  need  not 
necessarily  destroy  one's  happiness. 
If  I  do  the  best  I  can  with  the  tools 
I  have  I  needn't  weep  because  I  fail, 
and  with  his  consciousness  of  failure 


The  Intentions  of  the  Idiot 

the  unappreciated  genius  always  has 
the  consolation  of  knowing  that  it  is 
not  he  but  the  world  that  is  wrong. 
If  I  am  a  philanthropist  and  offer  a 
thousand  dollars  to  a  charity,  and  the 
charity  declines  to  accept  it  because 
I  happen  to  have  made  it  out  of  my 
interest  in  '  A  Widows'  and  Orphans' 
Speculation  Company,  Large  Losses  a 
Surety,'  it  is  the  charity  that  loses, 
not  I.  So  with  my  plans.  Social 
expansion  is  not  taken  up  by  society 
—who  dies,  I  or  society?  Capitalists 
decline  to  consider  my  proposition  for 
a  General  Poetry  Trust  and  Supply 
Company.  Who  loses  a  fine  chance, 
I  or  the  capitalists?  I  may  be  a 
little  discouraged  for  the  time  being, 
but  what  of  that?  Invention  isn't 
the  only  occupation  in  the  world  for 
me.  I  can  give  up  Philanthropy  and 
take  up  Misanthropy  in  a  moment  if 
I  want  to — and  with  Dreamaline  I 
can  rule  the  world." 

"Ah — just  what  is  this   Dreama- 
174 


Dreamaline 

line?"  asked  Mr.  Whitechoker,  in 
terested. 

"That,  sir,  is  the  question  which  I 
am  now  trying  to  answer  for  myself," 
returned  the  Idiot.  "  If  I  could  an 
swer  it,  as  I  have  said,  I  could  rule  the 
world — everybody  could  rule  the 
world ;  that  is  to  say,  his  own  world. 
It  is  based  on  an  old  idea  which  has 
been  found  by  some  to  be  practicable, 
but  it  has  never  been  developed  to 
the  point  which  I  hope  to  attain." 

"  Wake  me  up  when  he  gets  to  the 
point,  will  you,  kindly?"  whispered 
the  Doctor  to  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"If  you  sleep  until  then  you'll 
never  wake,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac. 
"To  my  mind  the  Idiot  never  comes 
to  a  point." 

"You  are  a  little  too  mysterious 
for  me,"  observed  Mr.  Whitechoker. 
"I  know  no  more  about  Dreamaline 
now  than  I  did  when  you  began." 

"Which  is  my  case  exactly,"  said 
the  Idiot.  "It  is  a  vague,  shadowy 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

something  as  yet.  It  is  only  a  germ 
lost  in  my  cerebral  wrinkles,  but  I 
hope  by  a  persistent  smoothing  out 
of  those  wrinkles  with  what  I  might 
call  the  flat-iron  of  thought,  I  may 
yet  lay  hold  of  the  microbe,  and  with 
it  electrify  the  world.  Once  Dreama- 
line  is  discovered  all  other  discoveries 
become  as  nothing;  all  other  inven 
tions  for  the  amelioration  of  the  con 
dition  of  the  civilized  will  be  un 
necessary,  and  even  Progressive 
Waffles  will  cease  to  fascinate." 

"  Perhaps,"  said  the  Bibliomaniac, 
"if  you  will  give  us  a  hint  as  to  the 
nature  of  your  plan  in  general  we 
may  be  able  to  help  you  in  carrying 
it  out." 

"The  Doctor  might,"  said  the 
Idiot.  "My  genial  friend  who  oc 
casionally  imbibes  might — even  the 
Poet,  with  his  taste  for  Welsh  rare 
bits,  might — but  from  you  and  Mr. 
Pedagog  and  Mr.  Whitechoker  I  fear 
I  should  receive  little  assistance. 
176 


Dreamaline 

Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  but  that  Mr. 
Whitechoker  might  disapprove  of  the 
plan  altogether." 

"Any  plan  which  makes  life  hap 
pier  and  better  is  sure  to  meet  with 
my  approval,"  said  Mr.  White- 
choker. 

"  With  that  encouragement,  then," 
said  the  Idiot,  "  I  will  endeavor  to  lay 
before  you  my  crowning  invention. 
Dreamaline,  as  its  name  may  sug 
gest,  should  be  a  patent  medicine,  by 
taking  which  man  should  become  ob 
livious  to  care." 

''What's  the  matter  with  cham 
pagne  for  that?"  interrupted  the 
Genial  Old  Gentleman  who  occasion 
ally  imbibes. 

"Champagne  has  some  good 
points,"  said  the  Idiot.  "But  there 
are  two  drawbacks — the  effects  and 
the  price.  Both  of  these  drawbacks, 
so  far  from  making  us  oblivious  to 
our  cares,  add  to  them.  The  superi 
ority  of  Dreamaline  over  champagne, 
177 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

or  even  over  beer,  which  is  compara 
tively  cheap,  is  that  one  dose  of 
Dreamaline,  costing  one  cent,  will 
do  more  for  the  patient  than  one  case 
of  champagne  or  one  keg  of  beer;  it 
is  not  intoxicating  or  ruinous  to  the 
purse.  Furthermore,  it  is  more  potent 
for  good,  since,  under  its  genial  in 
fluences,  man  can  do  that  to  which  he 
aspires,  or,  what  is  perhaps  better  yet, 
merely  imagine  that  he  is  doing  that 
to  which  he  aspires,  and  so  avoid  the 
disappointment  which  I  am  told  al 
ways  comes  with  ambition  achieved. 
"Take,  for  instance,  the  literary 
man.  We  know  of  many  cases  in 
which  the  literary  man  has  stimu 
lated  his  imagination  by  means  of 
drugs,  and  while  under  the  influence 
has  penned  the  most  marvellous 
tales.  That  man  sacrifices  himself  for 
the  delectation  of  others.  In  order 
to  write  something  for  the  world 
to  rave  over,  he  takes  a  dose  which 
makes  him  rave,  and  which  ultimately 
178 


Drcamalinc 

kills  him.  Dreamaline  will  make 
this  entirely  unnecessary.  Instead 
of  the  writers  taking  hasheesh,  the 
reader  takes  Dreamaline.  Instead  of 
one  man  having  to  smoke  opium  for 
millions,  the  millions  take  Dreama 
line  for  themselves  as  individuals.  I 
would  have  the  scientists,  then,  the 
chemists,  study  the  subject  carefully, 
decide  what  quality  it  is  in  hasheesh 
that  makes  a  writer  conceive  of  these 
horrible  situations,  put  this  into  a 
nostrum,  and  sell  it  to  those  who  like 
horrible  situations,  and  let  them 
dream  their  own  stories." 

"  Very  interesting,"  said  the  Biblio 
maniac,  "but  all  readers  do  not  like 
horrible  situations.  We  are  not  all 
morbid." 

"  For  which  we  should  be  devoutly 
thankful,"  said  the  Idiot.  "  But 
your  point  is  not  well  taken.  On 
each  bottle  of  what  I  should  call '  Lit 
erary  Dreamaline,'  to  distinguish  it 
from  'Art  Dreamaline,'  *  Scientific 
179 


The  Indentions  of  the  Idiot 

Dreamaline,'  and  so  on,  I  should  have 
printed  explicit  directions  showing 
consumers  how  the  dose  should  be 
modified  to  meet  the  consumer's 
taste.  One  man  likes  a  De  Maupassant 
story.  Let  him  take  his  Dreamaline 
straight,  lie  down  and  dream.  He'd 
get  his  De  Maupassant  story  with  a 
vengeance.  Another  likes  the  modern 
story  in  realism — a  story  in  which  a 
prize  might  be  offered  to  the  reader 
who  finds  a  situation,  an  incident 
in  the  three  hundred  odd  pages  of 
the  book  he  reads.  This  man  could 
take  a  spoonful  of  Dreamaline  and 
dilute  it  to  his  taste.  A  drop  of 
Dreamaline,  which  taken  raw  would 
give  a  man  a  dream  like  Doctor  Jekyll 
and  Mr.  Hyde,  put  into  a  hogshead  of 
pure  water  would  enable  the  man  who 
took  a  spoonful  of  it  before  going  to 
bed  to  fall  asleep  and  walk  through  a 
three- volume  novel  by  Henry  James. 
Thus  every  man  could  get  what  he 
wanted  at  small  expense.  Dreama- 
180 


Dreamaline 

line  for  readers  sold  at  a  dollar  a 
quart  would  give  every  consumer  as 
big  and  varied  a  library  as  he  wished, 
and  would  be  a  great  saving  to  the 
eyes.  People  would  have  more  time 
for  other  pleasures  if  by  taking  a  dose 
of  Dreamaline  before  retiring  they 
could  get  all  their  literature  in  their 
sleeping  hours.  Then  every  bottle 
would  pay  for  itself  ten  times  over  if 
on  awakening  the  next  morning  the 
consumer  would  write  out  the  story 
he  had  dreamed  and  publish  it  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  were  afraid 
to  take  the  medicine." 

"  You  wouldn't  make  much  money 
out  of  it,  though,"  said  the  Poet.  "  If 
one  bottle  sufficed  for  a  library  you 
wouldn't  find  much  of  a  demand." 

"That  could  be  got  around  in  two 
ways,"  said  the  Idiot.  "We could 
copyright  every  bottle  of  Dreama 
line  and  require  the  consumers  to 
pay  us  a  royalty  on  every  book  in 
spired  by  it,  or  we  could  ourselves 
181 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

take  what  I  would  call  Financial 
Dreamaline,  one  dose  of  which  would 
make  a  man  feel  like  a  millionaire. 
Life  is  only  feeling  after  all.  If  you 
feel  like  a  millionaire  you  are  as 
happy  as  a  millionaire — happier,  in 
fact,  because  in  reality  you  do  not 
have  to  wear  your  thumbs  out  cutting 
coupons  on  the  first  of  every  month. 
Then  I  should  have  Art  Dreamaline. 
You  could  have  it  arranged  so  that 
by  a  certain  dose  you  could  have  old 
masters  all  over  your  house;  by  an 
other  dose  you  could  get  a  collection 
of  modern  French  paintings,  and  by 
swallowing  a  whole  bottle  you  could 
dream  that  your  walls  were  lined 
with  mysteries  that  would  drive  the 
Impressionists  crazy  with  envy.  In 
Scientific  Dreamaline  you  would  get 
ideas  for  invention  that  would  revo 
lutionize  the  world." 

"How  about  the  poets  and  the 
humorists?"  asked  the  Poet. 

"They'd  be  easy,"  said  the  Idiot. 
182 


Dreamaline 

"I  wouldn't  have  any  hasheesh  in 
the  mixture  for  them.  Welsh  rare 
bit  would  do,  and  you'd  get  poems  so 
mysterious  and  jokes  so  uproarious 
that  the  whole  world  would  soon  be 
filled  with  wonder  and  with  laughter. 
In  short,  Dreamaline  would  go  into 
every  walk  of  life.  Music,  letters, 
art,  poetry,  finance.  Every  man 
according  to  his  bent  or  his  tastes 
could  partake.  Every  man  could 
make  with  it  his  own  little  world  in 
which  he  was  himself  the  prime 
mover,  and  so  harmless  would  it  be 
that  when  next  morning  he  awoke  he 
would  be  as  tranquil  and  as  happy  as 
a  babe.  I  hope,  gentlemen,  to  see 
the  day  when  Dreamaline  is  an  estab 
lished  fact,  when  we  cannot  enter  a 
household  in  the  land  that  does  not 
have  hanging  on  its  walls,  after  the 
manner  of  those  glass  fire  hand-gre 
nades,  a  wire  rack  holding  a  row  of 
bottles  labelled  Art,  Letters,  Music, 
and  so  on,  instead  of  libraries,  pict- 
183 


The  Inuentions  of  the  Idiot 

ure-galleries,  music-rooms,  and  labo 
ratories.  The  rich  and  the  poor  alike 
may  have  it.  The  child  who  loves  to 
have  stories  told  to  him  will  cry  for 
it;  the  poor  wanderer  who  loves  op 
era  and  cannot  afford  even  to  pass 
the  opera-house  in  a  cable-car,  can 
go  into  a  drug- store,  and  for  a  cent, 
begged  of  a  kind-hearted  pedestrian 
on  the  street,  purchase  a  sufficient 
quantity  to  imagine  himself  a  box- 
holder;  the  ambitious  statesman  can 
through  its  influences  enjoy  the  sen 
sation  of  thinking  himself  President 
of  the  United  States.  Not  a  man, 
woman,  or  child  lives  but  would 
find  it  a  boon,  and  as  harmless  as  a 
Graham  cracker.  That,  gentlemen, 
is  my  crowning  invention,  and  until 
I  see  it  realized  I  invent  no  more. 
Good-morning. " 

And  in  a  moment  he  was  gone. 

"  Well !"  said  Mr.  Pedagog.  "  That's 
the  cap  to  the  climax." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Smithers-Pedagog. 
184 


Dreamaline 

"  Where  do  you  suppose  he  got  the 
idea?"  asked  the  Bibliomaniac. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  the  Doctor. 
"  But  I  suspect  that  without  knowing 
it  he's  had  some  of  the  stuff  he  de 
scribes.  Most  of  his  schemes  indi 
cate  it,  and  Dreamaline,  I  think, 
proves  it." 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

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